The Triodion season ends on the Friday before Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday). We have together walked a journey reflecting on the Incarnation, the Cross, our unworthiness and the great mercy of our Lord. During this time we have practiced fasting and abstinence and offered our Lord the meager sufferings of our flesh in thanks for the divine Love He so freely grants us.
Saturday and Sunday before Holy Week are, as it were, a rest-stop along the way to Calvary. While we will continue our Lenten efforts of self-discipline, we pause to rejoice at the miracle that was a foretaste of our Lord's glorious Resurrection and a sign of promise for us -- the raising of Lazarus the Just from the dead. We also celebrate our Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem and symbolically reenact the praise of the people in our procession with palms (and in some areas pussy willows).
Yet even as these joyous moments were themselves also harbingers of the pains our Lord would suffer in the days leading to the Cross, our celebrations are tempered with sobriety as we look forward to the services that will mystically place us along the Via Dolorosa to share with the Apostles and disciples the horror and sadness of our Lord's Passion.
We prepare to enter Holy Week with an admixture of fear and joy, sadness and hope, knowing that only through the Cross do we find the Resurrection.
My thanks to everyone who has followed this humble blog over the Lenten Season. I pray you have joyous sorrow during Holy Week and encourage you to take part in as many Holy Week services as possible. I may add a few short entries concerning the traditional Byzantine Holy Week celebrations, but otherwise will refrain from further blogging until after Pascha.
Thanks be to God! In all things, thanks be to God! His mercy is great, His Love is supreme, His longsuffering is generous, His forgiveness in invincible, and as we cling to the Cross of our salvation, let us all say: Thanks be to God!
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4 comments:
You've become quite the prolific writer these days.
LOL! Thanks! Actually, "quite the trasnscriptionist". There have been several times when I've considered a 'personal' entry but never found the time. God willing, the excerpts from the Triodion and aliturgical readings have been helpful to my readers as they trod their Lenten path to Holy Week and Pascha.
want me to loan you some album reviews that you can pass off as your own?
Thanks, but no. My speed for music is a bit older than contemporary. I'll admit to the Beatles, but Romanos the Melodist is more my speed.
In truth, this respite is only temporary. I expect to tell a humorous tale after the next article is run in the local fishwrapper.
Looking forward to your sacrifice of time to celebrate the Sacrifice of our Lord!
The Byzantine Rambler
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