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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 to the spiritual one, the "natural" to the "supernatural." Limitations in food are instrumental; they are not ends in themselves. Fasting thus is but a means of reaching a spiritual goal and, therefore, an integral part of a wide spiritual effort. Fasting, in the Orthodox understanding, includes more than abstinence from certain types of food. It implies prayer, silence, an internal disposition of mind, an attempt to be charitable, kind, and-in one word-spiritual. Brethren, while fasting bodily, let us also fast spiritually...
And because of this the Orthodox doctrine of fasting excludes the evaluation of fasting in terms of a "maximum" or "minimum." Every one must find his maximum, weigh his conscience and find in it his "pattern of fasting." But this pattern must necessarily include the spiritual as well as the "bodily" elements. The Typicon and the canons of the Church give the description of an ideal fast: no meat or dairy products, total abstinence on certain days. "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it" (Matt. 19:12). But, whatever is our measure-our fasting must be a total effort of our total being.
According to the rules of the Church the fast cannot be broken for the entire Lenten period of forty days: Saturdays and Sundays are no exception.
3. Spiritual Reading
4. Change of Life
"If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." (John 14:23)Let us make this Lent a real Lent!
For a fuller treatment of the meaning of Lent, cf. the book GREAT LENT, also written by Rev. Alexander Schmemann.( ISBN 978-0-91383-604-0 )