Chapter 3 - The Soul’s Yearning for God

“For repentance, above everything else. This is a return to the genuine order of things, the restoration of the right vision. It is, therefore, rooted in humility. And humility—the divine and the beautiful humility—is its fruit and end” (Fr. Schmemann, Great Lent, p. 20).

“It is not the Lord’s desire that the soul should be despondent and in doubt concerning her salvation. Believe and be sure that we continue in suffering only until we have humbled ourselves; but so soon as we humble ourselves there is an end to the affliction. (Siouan, pg. 45)

1. What does “humbling myself” look like?

“…we must give the Holy Spirit the freedom of our souls, that He may dwell therein, that the soul may be sensible to His presence” (St. Silouan, pg. 45)

2. Think of times when you have especially known that the Lord is with you. What were the circumstances that you felt played a role in bringing that about?

“Where we like simple children, the Lord would show us His paradise and we should see Him in the glory of the Cherubim…but we are not humble, and therefore we torment ourselves and those we live among. (Silouan, pg. 43)”

3. What does it mean for me to ‘become as a little child?’

The Lord loves us more deeply that we can love ourselves; but the soul in her distress supposes that the Lord is forgetful of her, that He even has no wish to look upon her, and she suffers and pines. (Silouan pg 45)

4. What has helped me in times when I have felt abandoned by God?

4 Key Elements to Repentance (4 Sundays Before Great Lent- Publican & Pharisee)

“Humility is a grace in the soul and with a name known only to those who have had experience of it… ‘learn from Me,’ He said. That is, not from an angel, not from a man, not from a book, but ‘from Me,’ that is, from My dwelling within you, from My illumination and action within you, for ‘I am gentle and meek of heart (Mt. 11:29) in thought and in spirit, and your souls will find rest from conflicts and relief from evil thoughts.” (John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, p. 219).

The signs of having lost of Grace.

  • “But if a person lose grace, he will weep like Adam driven from Paradise (St. Silouan,pg. 38).”

  • Life is burdensome without love towards God (Silouan pg. 41)

  • The soul feels somber and stale (Silouan pg. 41)

  • Arguing about the faith (Silouan, pg. 43)

  • Never prays with an undistracted mind (Silouan, pg. 44)

Stages of Repentance (Prodigal Son)

1. Sin is exile. 2. Enslavement to ‘strangers’ 3. Hunger. 4. Changing Ones’ Mind, - “I will rise up and go” 5. Return home.

Sunday of Judgement: The Separation of goats from sheep (Love Everyone)

“Christian love is the ‘possible impossibility’ to see Christ in another man, whoever he is, and whom God, in His eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few moments, not as an occasion for a ‘good deed’ or an exercise in philanthropy, but as a beginning of an eternal companionship in God Himself. (Schmemann, Great Lent, pg. 25).”

Chapter 4 – The Lament of Adam - Sin as the realization of having lived in a state of “exile”

FORGIVENESS SUNDAY: The Expulsion of Adam from Paradise of Bliss

• Mankind was created for Paradise, for knowledge and Communion with God

• Sin deprives us of Paradise and our existence on earth is exile

• Paradise opened again through the death and resurrection of Christ

CONDITIONS FOR FREEDOM FROM SIN

“I sorrow and weep having grieved my beloved God (Silouan pg. 49)” - “Hold fast to the blessed and joyful sorrow of holy compunction and do not cease laboring for it until it lifts you high above the things of the world” (STEP 7, of the Ladder of St. John.)

Forgiveness – the main sign of sin is division, opposition, separation, hatred

Fasting – is the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal