Categories: feast-days, other-churches
Date: 25 February 2009 00:52:04
My warmest wishes, and my prayers for a blessed Lenten season, for all celebrating Ash Wednesday today. Eastern Orthodoxy does not celebrate Ash Wednesday, as Lent is calculated differently. Great Lent for us begins on "Clean Monday", which this year is Monday March 2, the day after after The Sunday of Forgiveness [also known as Cheesefare Sunday, for it is the last day according to the Orthodox Lenten fasting rules that dairy may be eaten before Pascha (Easter)]. [Pascha for us is one week later than "Western" Easter this year; it varies from being the same day to being up to 5 weeks [I think] after due to calendar differences.]
The Sunday of Forgiveness is so-called because of both the Gospel reading for Liturgy [Matthew 6:14-21] and the Vespers Service of Forgiveness, where each member of the congregation, individually, asks each other member and the clergy for forgiveness. It is an extremely moving, and humbling, service.
But back to Ash Wednesday: I will try and get to a service in an Anglican or Catholic church tonight. I do love the symbolism of the ashes being placed on people's foreheads; and the Lenten hymns of the Western Church are some of the most beautiful I have heard. On the way to work today I was playing a CD containing Forty Days and Forty Nights, Lord Jesus, think on me, Ah, holy Jesus, how has thou offended? [and has this hymn not got the most wondrous tune?], Drop, Drop, Slow Tears and It is a thing most wonderful, which contains the following last verse:
And yet I want to love thee, Lord;
O light the flame within my heart,
and I will love thee more and more,
until I see thee as thou art.
That is my prayer as we approach Lent, and as my "Western" [for want of a better term], brothers and sisters enter Lent today: may I love and know the Lord and His ways more and more -- and make them my own.