By Fr. A.H.
With Forgiveness Vespers, which is
celebrated on Cheesefare Sunday evening, Great Lent begins. This solemn
period of repentance is offered to us as a way of life. A way of life
that brings forgiveness from God, as well as from our brethren.
It
is very characteristic what is written: "Forgive (συγχωρῶ) means to
'move forward' (χωρῶ) with God and with others." With forgiveness we do
not only receive a simple absolution, which implies a legalistic concept
of salvation. Rather, forgiveness with God is an ocean of divine
goodness that erases human sins. And so in its full reality, forgiveness
becomes communion with Christ and His Kingdom.
During the course of our
journey, let us mutually support one another in our weaknesses, let us
mutually forgive one another by forgetting our differences, let us
mutually protect one another to reach our destination. Essentially we
should live to what God calls us, as a unique unity with the forgiveness
that we offer to others. This is because Christians are not part of a
caste system, but we are dough.
Let us now kneel, therefore,
before the icon of Christ and the Panagia, our Bishop and our Fathers,
as well as our brethren, and let us ask for their forgiveness, since
they have much to forgive us for. And let us forgive one another.
Forgiveness does not begin when peace, calmness and joy begin to reign;
forgiveness begins the moment we take on each others shoulders the
"burdens of one another", and the first and heaviest load is the
personhood of another, what that person is, and not what that person
does or does not do. If necessary let us carry one another as Christ
carried His Cross, as a type of torment, pain and death, but let us not
allow someone behind under any circumstance without our forgiveness.
Source:Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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