Forgive me and Good Lent!

It's Clean Monday!! I can't remember when my soul has felt so light or so delighted to welcome the fast! This year I feel as though I'm running into Great Lent with joy. I have been terribly needing and craving the focus, simplicity and trials of the fast. We've stuffed ourselves like crazy in the weeks leading up to this week. I spent lots of time cooking delicious meat dishes for two weeks. Then last week we loaded ourselves with homemade bliny, homemade caramel pecan rolls, pizza, calzone, omelets, macaroni and cheese, cheese grits, ice cream, cheesecake. We ate it all. And it was yummy! But how my stomach, body and soul are crying out for the fast. I feel so excited today!

We are home from the first service of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. It is one of the most beautiful parts of Lent for me. I just love this first week. We're all a little weary from singing and the many prostrations, but it's a good kind of weariness.

Last night after forgiving all of our fellow parishioners at vespers, having a last cheese pizza and frozen custard and calling grandparents and parents to ask forgiveness, we set about making our home ready. The kids were enlisted for some extra cleaning. After all, Clean Week is beginning! It's time to clean our home as well as our hearts. Then we took down many of the framed family portraits and photographs that cover the walls of our living room, kitchen and dining room. They were replaced with icons. We have so, so many icons so we don't normally hang them all. Many are kept in boxes in our garage. But last night, they all came out. No more looking at so many photos of ourselves this Lent. We've replaced those images with images Christ, His Mother and the Saints. And so suddenly our home seems new and our lives refocused. We also set up our Lenten journey path. I'll blog more about that soon. And we all made some plans for things other than just food that we'll give up this Lent: TV at certain times, computer games, Facebook (yes, we all need a break from too much socializing).

We are beginning the fast with new vigor and joy! How wonderful to set out as a family in this struggle. I was truly encouraged by the words of our Metropolitan JONAH (Paffhausen) of the OCA which were read from the pulpit on Sunday.

"Let our fasting be accompanied by the refusal to indulge in judgment and criticism of others: gossip, slander, suspicion and innuendo, all that is hateful to God. Let us fast from meat, as we fast from the carnality of hatred and resentment of others, which is the source of our passions, pain and addictions. Let us fast from cheese, as we cut out the bitterness that curdles the joy in our lives, the pure milk of love. Let us fast from eggs, so that the seeds of corruption do not hatch in our souls. Let us fast from oil, so that we do not grease our lips to slander and fry our neighbor. Let us fast from wine, that we might remain sober and watchful, to maintain the purity of our souls, minds and hearts.

Let us make this Lent a spiritual fast, so that purified in mind and heart, as well as in body, we might behold the radiant Resurrection of Christ in the reception of the Holy Mysteries at Pascha, but most especially, in the resurrection of our souls."

Indeed, may we meet each other in joy at the end of this journey at the Resurrection of Christ and of our souls!

My dear readers, please forgive me for all of my sins against you. May you have a good, profitable and joyful Lent!

(The full text of Metropolitan JONAH's message may be found here.

As we come to the end of Paschaltide . . .

Here are a few last minute Paschal wishes to you all for this year. 2yo is in LOVE with the Paschal greeting this year, and often spontaneously walks up to me and yells "Christ is Risen!" He also insists that HE has to be the one to start the tropar before every meal. You can see below that he is partial to the Greek, but gives Arabic a valiant try.

And here's the duet version. For kids whose mother is getting a PhD in Slavic Linguistics, these boys sure do avoid the Church Slavonic. They are like the cobbler's kids who have no shoes.

Oh, and for those who ask how I manage to homeschool and be a grad student, the disastrous mess in the background is the answer to your question. See the laundry, toys and books everywhere? That's just regular old life around here.