On the Waning of Great Lent – a reflection

Archpriest Basil Rhodes

Great Lent for this year will soon be drawing to a close. I always look forward to its arrival, and I’m always a little sad to see it go. We have one more week before it is over, and our focus shifts radically from the amendment of our lives to the Lord’s Passion, to Holy Week.

How well have I observed Lent this year? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves. While it isn’t very helpful for us to dwell too much on this, we always know that we could have done better. But why get all melancholy about it? We have a full week left in order to try harder to “do it right!” Let’s kick our efforts up a notch for this next, and last week of the Fast, relying, with confidence, on the words of St. John Chrysostom: “If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord…will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.”

Let’s listen to the words of Pope and Saint Leo the Great (+461) for encouragement: “Dearly Beloved, observe these venerable practices of this most acceptable time (i.e. Great Lent), and with anxious care let us clean the windows of our souls. For however chastely and soberly we live in this mortal life, we shall yet be soiled by some dust in the course of our earthly journey…Let us take refuge in the ever-present mercy of God, and, so that we may with becoming reverence celebrate the Holy Pascha of the Lord, let all the faithful seek to make holy their own hearts. Let harshness give way to mildness, let wrath be tamed with gentleness, forgive one another your offenses, and let him who seeks to be forgiven be not, himself, a seeker of vengeance. For when we say “forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12), we bind ourselves in the most enduring bonds unless we fulfill what we profess. And if the most sacred contract of this prayer has not in every respect been fulfilled, let every man now, at least, examine his conscience, and gain pardon of his own sins by forgiving those of others.” Amen.