ou weak yet not come to the physician?
Now is the fruitful time, and now is the real day of salvation.
Arise! Wash thyself in the tears of repentance and enlighten thy lamp with the oil of good works,
That thou mayest obtain from God forgiveness and great mercy."
(Tuesday Matins, Second Week)
"Arriving midway on that road of fasting which leads to Thy venerable cross,
And hoping for a glimpse of that day when Abraham caught up Isaac from the grave
We entreat Thee to make us partakers of Thy mystical supper
Who are saved by faith and cry out to Thee:
O our Light and our Saviour, glory to Thee."
(Wednesday Matins, Fourth Week)
5. The Psalter
6. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
"... When Thou has freed us and Thy faithful people from all impurities, sanctify the souls and bodies of all of us with a sanctification not to be taken away; that with a clear conscience, peaceful presence and enlightened hearts we may participate in those divine Sacraments, and be quickened through them and become one with Thy Christ Himself, our true God, Who said: Who so eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood, abides in Me and I in Him. So that by Thy Word dwelling in us and walking with us we may become, O Lord, a temple of Thine all-holy and adored spirit..."
(Prayer at the Presanctified Liturgy)
7. Liturgical Music and Vestments
And finally, as an external symbol of this state of repentance, preparation and humility, dark purple vestments are used in the Church.
8. Saturdays and Sundays of Lent
Lenten Saturdays, with the exception of the first, dedicated to the memory of the Holy Martyr Theodore Tyron, and the fifth, the Saturday of the Akathistos, are days of commemoration of the departed. And it would be good o restore this practice of one weekly universal commemoration of all Orthodox Christians departed this life, of their integration in the Eucharist which is always offered "on behalf of ill and for all."
Each Sunday in Lent, although it preserves ts basic meaning: that of the weekly feast of Resurrection, has its own special theme:
The First Sunday-Triumph of Orthodoxy- commemorates the victory of the Church over he last major heresy: Icorioclasm (842).
The second Sunday is dedicated to the memory of St. Gregory Palamas, a great Byzantine mystic and theologian of the 14th century, who centered his teaching on the high calling of man, on his "deification" in Christ.
The third Sunday is the Sunday "of the Veneration of the Holy Cross." At Matins the Cross is brought in a solemn procession from the sanctuary and placed in the center of the Church, where it remains for the whole week, 'his rite announces the approaching of the Holy Week, with its commemoration of Christ's Passion. A special veneration of the Cross takes place at the end of each service.
Fourth Sunday-St. John of the Ladder, one of the greatest Ascetics, who in his "Spiritual Ladder" described the various stages of spiritual life.
Fifth Sunday-St. Mary of Egypt, whose life is a most wonderful example of repentance.
On Saturdays and Sundays, days of Eucharistic celebration, the dark vestments are replaced by light ones, the Lenten melodies are not sung and the prayer of St. Ephrem with prostrations is omitted. The order of services is not of the Lenten type, yet fasting remains a rule and cannot be broken. Each Sunday night at Great Vespers a special Great Prokimenon (verses from a psalm) inaugurates a new week in the penitential effort.
HOW CAN WE KEEP GREAT LENT?
The first universal precept is that of fasting. The Orthodox teaching concerning fasting is different from the Roman Catholic doctrine and it is essential to understand it. Roman Catholics identify fasting with a "good deed," see in it a sacrifice which earns us a "merit." "What shall I give up for Lent?"-this question is very typical of such an attitude toward fasting. Fasting thus is a formal obligation, an act of obedience to the Church, and its value comes precisely from obedience. The Orthodox idea of fasting is first of all that of an ascetical effort. It is the effort to subdue the physical, the fleshly man