SUNDAY OF CHEESEFARE — Tone 3. The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Hieromartyr Theodotus, Bishop of Cyrenia (ca. 320).
Tone 3 Troparion (Resurrection)
Let the heavens rejoice! Let the earth be glad! For the Lord has shown strength with His arm. He has trampled down death by death. He has become the first born of the dead. He has delivered us from the depths of hell, and has granted to the world// great mercy.
Tone 4 Troparion (St. Nicholas)
The truth of your deeds has revealed you to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of self-control; your humility exalted you; your poverty enriched you.// O Father Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Tone 3 Kontakion (St. Nicholas)
You proved yourself to be be a holy priest, O Nicholas. You served God in Myra and lived the gospel of Christ. You offered your life for your people, And rescued the innocent from death. Therefore God has glorified you as a trustworthy guide of things divine.
Tone 6 Kontakion (from the Lenten Triodion)
O Master, Teacher of wisdom, Bestower of virtue, Who teach the thoughtless and protect the poor, strengthen and enlighten my heart! O Word of the Father, let me not restrain my mouth from crying to You: “Have mercy on me, a transgressor,//O merciful Lord!”
Tone 8 Prokeimenon (Resurrection)
Pray and make your vows / before the Lord, our God! (Ps. 75:10a)
V. In Judah God is known; His name is great in Israel. (Ps. 75:1)
Romans 13:11-14:4 (Epistle)
And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.
Tone 6
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
V. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to Your Name, O Most High. (Ps. 91:1)
V. To declare Your mercy in the morning, and Your truth by night. (Ps. 91:2a)
Matthew 6:14-21 (Gospel)
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Sunday of Cheesefare: Expulsion of Adam from Paradise
As we begin the Great Fast, the Church reminds us of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise. God commanded Adam to fast (Gen. 2:16), but he did not obey. Because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden and lost the life of blessedness, knowledge of God, and communion with Him, for which they were created. Both they and their descendents became heirs of death and corruption.
Let us consider the benefits of fasting, the consequences of disobedience, and recall our fallen state. Today we are invited to cleanse ourselves of evil through fasting and obedience to God. Our fasting should not be a negative thing, a mere abstention from certain foods. It is an opportunity to free ourselves from the sinful desires and urges of our fallen nature, and to nourish our souls with prayer, repentance, to participate in church services, and partake of the life-giving Mysteries of Christ.
At Forgiveness Vespers we sing: “Let us begin the time of fasting in light, preparing ourselves for spiritual efforts. Let us purify our soul, let us purify our body. As we abstain from food, let us abstain from all passion and enjoy the virtues of the spirit….”
On knowing and doing
If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them (John 13:17).
The most important aspect of this saying of our Lord’s, dear brethren, is that the Lord does not bless the knowing, but the doing. He does not say to the apostles: “Blessed are ye when ye know this.” Some pagan teachers who viewed salvation only in terms of knowledge spoke in this manner. However, our Lord says: Blessed are ye if ye do them. The knowledge of salvation was given to us by the Lord Jesus Himself, and no one is able to attain that knowledge through his own efforts. Some of the ancient Greek philosophers said that mankind could neither come to the knowledge of the truth nor be saved until God Himself came to earth. The Lord came among men and revealed this knowledge to them. Whosoever receives this knowledge also accepts the obligation to fulfill it. Oh, how much easier will it be at the Judgment for those who never received this knowledge at all and consequently did not fulfill it, than for those who received this knowledge and neglected to fulfill it! Oh, how much easier it will be at the Judgment for unlearned pagans than for learned Christians! The Lord Himself showed that he was not only a Knower but also a Doer. His perfect knowledge corresponded to His perfect doing. Before the eyes of His disciples, He personally fulfilled all of His own commandments. He gave them this commandment after He had completed an act of humility and love. When He had washed the feet of His disciples, He then commanded that they should do the same to one another. The Lord did not dwell among men to soil them, but to wash them. He never soiled anyone, but cleansed all who wished to be cleansed. What a shame it is for many of us, who labor much to wash ourselves and labor twice as much to soil others! O my brethren, we muddy our own blood brothers. Even Christ weeps when He sees how we, with the mud of slander, soil those whom He has washed with His own blood. O Lord, forgive us! We sin every day against our own brothers.
O Lord, make our brothers, whom we have soiled, brighter than us in Thy Kingdom. Thou art just and Thou seest all. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
— Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid
On Cheesefare Sunday: St. John of Kronstadt
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matt 6:14)
The present Sunday is called among the Russian Orthodox people Forgiveness Sunday, from the good and pious custom to forgive one another, that is, to ask forgiveness of one another before Great Lent. This custom originated from the Saviour’s commandment, read in today’s Gospel, to forgive one another if we want our sins to be forgiven by our Heavenly Father, Whom we offend countless times and Whose wrath we provoke every day and hour. Since Great Lent starts tomorrow, and all of us, according to the Christian custom, are preparing to throw off the heavy burden of our sins, and seeing how this act of throwing off the burden of sin requires some self-sacrifice on our part, as well as some skill, the Lord teaches us what exactly is required of us in order that our sins be completely forgiven, or what we must do on our part, since the Lord God, on His part, is always ready to save and have mercy on repentant sinners. The Lord says that simplicity is required of us, as well as the absence of rancor and wrath; it is required that we forget offenses and possess friendliness and love for our enemies. Your salvation is in your hands, within your power. If you will forgive others their offenses, sins, their nuisance and constant requests, then your sins will be forgiven, and you, with your own nuisance and constant requests to God, will never go away from Him empty-handed, and will receive from Him great and abundant mercies. If you forgive the sins of your neighbor, which compared to your sins against God are few, then God will forgive your countless shortcomings; you forgive the debt of one hundred pence, and the Lord forgives your debt of many talents. But what rancor people often possess! Then, the Lord requires little of us—that we forgive and forget other’s offenses—which are like drops in the ocean when compared to our sins against God, and requires this for our own benefit and desires to teach us meekness, gentleness, patience, humble-mindedness, brotherly love, forbearance, peace; in the meantime we are beside ourselves, showing which of our rights have been violated by our neighbors, kindling within ourselves and in our neighbors the flames of enmity, and in this way we madly and boldly push away from ourselves the saving hand of God, adding sin to sin, and rushing headlong toward destruction. Gentleness before God and our neighbors is a great blessing and a great virtue; it covers a multitude of sins. Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, the ancestor of God, king and prophet, and many other people in the Old Testament were especially loved and glorified by God for having this virtue. In the New Testament, a countless number of saints imitated the meek and humble Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who told all of us in the Gospel: learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart: and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:29). Therefore, let us not listen to the devil, who teaches us to feed the evil against our neighbor, but let us, in simplicity of heart, forgive the offenses caused by our neighbors, also at the instigation of the enemy. Let no one think evil against one another; let no one be distracted by evil suspicions against his neighbor, for all of these are the illusions of the enemy of our salvation, who tries in every possible way to destroy the bonds of love in us and to sow demonic hatred and hostility. Let us remember the Saviour’s commandment: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another (John 13:34), and the words of the Apostle Paul: for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:8, 10).
— St. John of Kronstadt: Sergiev, Ivan Ilyich. Season of Repentance: Lenten Homilies of Saint John of Kronstadt
How to seek for discretion
WE ought then with all our might to strive for the virtue of discretion by the power of humility, as it will keep us uninjured by either extreme, for there is an old saying akrothtes isothtes, i.e., extremes meet. For excess of fasting and gluttony come to the same thing, and an unlimited continuance of vigils is equally injurious to a monk as the torpor of a deep sleep: for when a man is weakened by excessive abstinence he is sure to return to that condition in which a man is kept through carelessness and negligence, so that we have often seen those who could not be deceived by gluttony, destroyed by excessive fasting and by reason of weakness liable to that passion which they had before overcome. Unreasonable vigils and nightly watchings have also been the ruin of some whom sleep could not get the better of: wherefore as the apostle says “with the arms of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,” we pass on with due moderation, and walk between the two extremes, under the guidance of discretion, that we may not consent to be led away from the path of continence marked out for us, nor fall by undue carelessness into the pleasures of the palate and belly.
Cassian, John. Conferences of John Cassian
2025 Lenten Message from His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin
To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Diocese of the West
Dearly beloved,
Once again, we have arrived at the threshold of the Holy Tithe of the year — Great Lent. We are called by the Lord and the Church to set aside these weeks, gird ourselves and begin the journey to the Resurrection. We have spent five Sundays with the Church giving us lessons of preparation for this holy time. The paradox is that the preparatory Sundays are simply preparation to move into preparation for Pascha. We cannot enter Great Lent without the desire of Zacchaeus, the humility of the Publican, the realization of exile and subsequent return of the Prodigal, the finding of true salvation in the “least of my brethren,” and, perhaps most difficult of all the preparation: bowing down to ask and grant forgiveness to all. To pause and realize that all of this is but getting us ready to enter into Lent is almost breathtaking.
Enter into Lent we will. Each and every person must choose for him/herself whether and how much to fast. But what does this “fast” mean? We face Great Lent every year being tempted to look at things as a contest or checklist. “I ate the right things. I ate the right amount of those things. Umm, there wasn’t milk in that bread I had, was there? I made 90% of the extra services. I went to confession just like Father said I had to. My Lent was successful!” Then after singing “Christ is Risen!” we go back to the life we had before all the preparation, before all the services, before all the confessions, before all the “checklists.”
We only find the true meaning of Great Lent in repentance and the realization that the Fast isn’t a checklist of dos and don’ts, but rather a very serious battlefield in which we are fighting tooth and nail to lose ourselves. Then, and only then, the Lord says we will find ourselves. That is the goal of Lent — to lose myself. The contest isn’t to eat less, eat the right things, go the right services or any other count we wish to keep. We eat less because we normally stuff ourselves while ignoring our neighbor, we eat the “right” things because the normal things we eat are more important to us than the eternal food of heaven, we go to the services because we can lift up our hearts, minds and voices to the Lord instead of parking ourselves in front of Netflix. Any “count” we keep is only valuable if they replace the mundane and yet so valuable items that usually clutter our lives, creating a space for Something and Someone more important.
If Lent is a war with the dark forces of this world, the battleground is my soul. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving and repentance are the weapons the Church gives us to fight this battle. She gathers us together in prayer often, feeds us at the training table of warriors and the Lord Himself stands beside each of us to fight with us and uphold us in our weak moments. Repentance is the foundation of all Lenten effort. To repent means to turn around. To want to be something — someone — different than the person I am in my sin and weakness. The Lord is standing ready to receive us! St. Ephraim the Syrian prays thus about the truly penitent:
You, O Master, are omniscient and see the resolve with which a man turns from sin. And before he comes to the door, You open it for him. Before he falls at Your feet, You stretch out Your hand to him. Before he sheds tears, You bestow upon him Your compassion. Before he confesses his debts, You grant him forgiveness. You do not accuse him or say: how did you squander your belongings? You do not remember how he angered You with his depravity; You do not reproach him for scorning Your good works. (St. Ephraim the Syrian, A Spiritual Psalter)
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is waiting for us! Let us bow down before each other and seek (and grant) forgiveness as we enter into this tithe of the year. Let us pray personally, and corporately, with a sincere and humble heart. Let us live disciplined lives that do not scandalize anyone. Let us fast in order to create a space for the One who is going to His Passion and Resurrection for us. I wish for all my faithful parishes and each and every one of you a most fruitful and joyous Fast. May we all rejoice in the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection at the end of these most holy days.
With love in Christ,
Benjamin
Archbishop of San Francisco and the West
Sunday Bulletin February 23, 2025