Day 110 - Second day of Easter

Ok, this is the last church photo for a while, I promise. Second day of Easter (Pascha), and I went to a morning liturgy which is very joyous in mood. Just as the period preceding Easter, Great Lent, is 40 days, not including Holy Week, the week before Easter, so is the Paschal period 40 days. Going to the services prolongs the joyous mood of the feast before one lapses back into the mundane, not to mention overeating. Must say, it's great to cook with meat again. The house is full of delicious aromas!

Day 70 - Presanctified liturgy

It's the second week of Great Lent, and tonight I went to a presanctified liturgy. The evening presanctifieds are peaceful, and have a particular stillness about them. It's a service that internalises, and so it takes a while to step out of the everyday world into this different space, ie to focus inside oneself.

Great Lent is a journey. It's many things, but amongst others, it's a time you try and see all the crap inside yourself. Sometimes, at the end of the journey, you've cleaned some of it out, or at least you have glimpses of who you really are.

Day 60 - Forgiveness Sunday

Taken at the evening service on Forgiveness Sunday, one side of the altar table depicting Christ being laid in the tomb, with the Mother of God, St John the Theologian and Joseph of Arimathea. The person who carved this is the one who will eventually carve my archway. This evening service marks the start of Great Lent. The sermon today reminded us that Lent is not just a diet, not just a tradition or token gesture, but a time for self-discipline and self-limitation, taking away from our habitual focus on and feeding of ourselves. Along with forgiveness of others, we arm ourselves and begin the journey, the inner process that will enable us, God willing, to meet the Bright Resurrection of Christ.

I wish my pictures wouldn't keep getting cut on the right side.