Sunday, February 22, 2009

"Through greed we underwent the first stripping, overcome by the bitter tasting of the fruit, and we became exiles from God. But let us turn back to repentance and, fasting from the food that gives us pleasure, let us cleanse our senses on which the enemy makes war. Let us strengthen our hearts with the hope of grace, and not with foods which brought no benefit to those who trusted in them. Our food shall be the Lamb of God, on the holy and radiant night of His Awakening: the Victim offered for us, given in communion to the disciples on the evening of the Mystery, who disperses the darkness of ignorance by the Light of His Resurrection."
~ From the Lenten Triodion, the Aposticha for Vespers on the Evening of the Sunday of the Last Judgement.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
[We did not have Vespers last week.]

Unknown said...

I just wanted to let you know that your conversion story is moving and beautifully written. I may link to it. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and was also chrismated on Holy Saturday in 1984. I now live in central Pennsylvania. There are 31 Orthodox parishes within a sixty mile radius of here, including the Carpatho-Russian Cathedral in Johnstown. My "home" parish where I was chrismated is in Louisville, KY, and is Antiochian. The local parish, the one here in town, is an OCA parish.

Christ is among us!

Fr. David said...

rightwingprof,

He is, and ever shall be!

Thanks for commenting; my wife is a Kentuckian, and we have attended liturgy at St. Michael's several times. Father Alexander is a delight.