Sermons & Homilies
Today we enter into the period of the Lenten Triodion, which includes the three weeks before Lent begins and continues up to Holy and Great Saturday. The purpose of everything that takes place during this period is to “recollect the entire work of God’s benevolence towards us.”[1] These first three weeks instruct us and prepare us spiritually for the time of the Fast. On each of the Sundays before Lent begins, we are taught about a certain aspect of the spiritual life. Today we learn about humility and repentance. Starting today, until the fifth week of Lent after the hymn, “Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ…”, penitential troparia are sung to instruct us about humility which is the beginning of the Christian life and also, the beginning of Lent.[2] Repentance is the doorway to the Fast and humility is the foundation on which repentance is built. As Abba Dorotheos teaches us, we need humility more than anything else; no other virtue can be achieved without humility.[3] This is demonstrated through the services as we prepare ourselves for the Fast by looking to the Publican as an example of how we are to advance.
In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers we read:
One day blessed Theophilus the archbishop came to the mountain of Nitria and the abba of the mountain came to meet him. The archbishop said to him, ‘Father, in this way of life which you follow, what do you find to be best?’ The old man said to him, ‘The act of accusing myself, and of constantly reproaching myself.’ Abba Theophilus said to him, ‘There is no other way but this.’