A homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, Pennsylvania, for Forgiveness Sunday, 7533 (2025 on the Civil Calendar), and the start of Great Lent.

***

Dear Brothers and Sisters, they did not repent nor ask forgiveness.

Adam and Eve, although given the opportunity each by God, according to the Church Fathers studying Moses’ prophetic account, did not ask forgiveness. Adam blamed the woman, and also blamed God for giving her to him. Eve blamed the serpent. Having shown no repentance and havingasked no forgiveness, they were expelled from Paradise. How often this may be the story of our lives, too. Even today are we glad it is Forgiveness Sunday so that someone else other than ourselves may come to their senses and ask forgiveness and repent, o we don’t focus on our own sin and lack of true humility? For while the Cherub with the flaming sword stands at the gate of Paradise, so too Jesus Christ comes from the royal doors to us in the Chalice offering His body and blood. What sacrifice of our own pride and comfort can we offer in return?

The Russian Orthodox writer Dostoevsky wrote through his memorable character Elder Zosima that we all stand guilty in part for each other’s sins. This is not a Western legalistic approach of asserting our rights and saying that I’m ok. Instead, it is recognizing the true interconnection of life in God’s Creation, what we call in Russian Orthodoxy sobornost, a word that has the meaning of solidarity, a mystical spiritual unity with one another, which conveys the true meaning of catholic as not just universally spatial but a deep connection in the heart.

Our father among the saints the great Serbian and American Saint Nikolai Velimirovich, friend of our patron St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, wrote a beautiful homily about this day where we stand at the gateway to Great Lent and our journey to Pascha. St. Nikolai wrote,

“…because today’s Gospel passage speaks of fasting… we would like to explain this passage.

“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses…. You ask: ‘How is this connected with fasting?’ It is connected, and very closely, as closely as the final section of the Gospel is connected with fasting that says nothing about fasting but rather talks about gathering treasures not on the earth but in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can destroy it, and where thieves can’t break in and steal it. For if we are to understand fasting in the truly Christian and not legalistic and pharisaical sense, then forgiving offenses and refraining from avarice are a fast, and the most important fast at that; or, if you will, they are the most important fruit of the fast. This is because, truly, refraining from food is worth very little without refraining from paying offences with offence and refraining from being blinded by earthly goods….

“Every sin is dirt, and every passion is drunkenness. If your brother has plunged his soul into the defilement of sin, should you also lay your soul down into the same defilement? So refrain from what your sinful brother does, and hasten also to lift him out of it and clean it off; for the Heavenly Father lifted and cleansed you of all your sins both secret and obvious, and has placed you amidst His angels at the Dread Judgment….

“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Here is the main rule of fasting….It is absolutely of no importance whether people see or know that you are fasting …. Therefore do not show off your fasting with the help of some outward signs. God reads your heart not according to external signs; He reads it from the inside, from the heart itself. As you anointed your head before the fast, so anoint it during the fast; and as you washed your face before the fast, so wash it during the fast.….

“And anoint thine head means precisely: Anoint your head with the Holy Spirit. For the head signifies the mind and the whole soul, and the fragrant oil with which the head is anointed is the Holy Spirit. And this means: Do not accept any evil thoughts, and refrain from all filthy and indecent words; to the contrary, fill your mind with divine contemplation, thoughts of holiness, purity, faith, love, and everything that is worthy of the Holy Spirit. Do the same with your tongue—for the speech and the mind are one—and either say nothing at all, or, if you speak, say only what serves to the glory of God and the salvation of the soul.

“Do exactly the same also with your heart: Refrain from all hatred and anger, envy and pride, blasphemy against God and people, from all sin and sinful desires, passions and lusts—renounce all this and allow the Holy Spirit the possibility to sow the field of your heart with all species of divine and God-pleasing grains and heavenly flowers. Do exactly the same also with your will: Refrain from all sinful intentions and sinful deeds, incline away from all evil and allow the Holy Spirit the possibility to anoint your hardened soul with itself like fragrant oil, heal its wounds, restore it to God, make good works pleasant to it, and fill it with the thirst for every good thing that is in God….

“And wash thy face means: Cleanse your body from committing any kind of sin, any impurity and any evil. Restrain your feelings from everything intemperate and destructive. Forbid your eyes from ceaselessly wandering over this motley world; forbid your ears from listening to whatever does not serve for the salvation of the soul; forbid your nostrils from intoxicating your soul with the aromas of this world that quickly turn into stench; forbid your tongue and belly from lusting after large quantities of food and drink; in general, do not allow your body to luxuriate and demand more from you than is needed for existence. Furthermore, forbid your hands from beating and tormenting people and animals; forbid your legs from heading towards sin, from going to mindless banquets… to fights or theft…. direct your whole body that it might be a true temple for your soul… a temple of the living God ….

“A countless host of Christ’s God-pleasers were purified by fasting, strengthened by fasting, and became great heroes in human history, for they conquered what is hardest of all to conquer—themselves. And having conquered themselves they conquered the world and the devil….

“Finally, didn’t our Lord Jesus Christ Himself begin His divine work of the salvation of mankind with a long, forty-day fast? Didn’t He by this show clearly that we should also begin our true Christian life with fasting? …. With this weapon He conquered the devil in the desert, and then also conquered the three main diabolical passions, through which satan has free access to us, namely: love of pleasure, ambition, and avarice—three destructive lusts and three enormous traps into which the evil adversary of mankind lures Christ’s warriors….

“We are bound to our treasure like a river to its stream, be our treasure on earth, or in heaven…. If we choose…treasures, which we are forced to preserve from moths, rust, and thieves, our torment will be eternal. However, the inner meaning of earthly treasures is all earthly learnedness, earthly culture, and earthly nobility, inasmuch as they are separate from God and the Gospel….The inner meaning of laying up treasures in heaven is to enrich your mind with the knowledge of the Divinity and God’s will; and to enrich your heart and soul with the culture and nobility of the Gospel.…. Therefore let us open our eyes while there is still time. Let us firmly believe that the final victory will not belong to the devil and his angels, but to our King and Leader Christ. So let us hasten to take up the victory-bearing weapon blessed by our King for battle—Great Lent; a weapon that is for us bright and glorious, and for our adversary terrible and fatal. Let us abstain from gluttony and drunkenness, that they might not burden our hearts (cf. Lk. 21:34) and not bury them in corruption and darkness. Let us abstain from gathering up earthly treasures, that through them satan cannot separate us from Christ and force us to surrender. And when we fast, let us fast not for the sake of human praise, but for the sake of our soul’s salvation and to the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the angels and saints in heaven and the righteous on earth sing hymns of praise—to the Trinity One in Essence and Indivisible, now and ever, and to all ages, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

Thus spoke St. Nikolai about today.

Brothers and sisters, we love Him, Jesus Christ, because He first loved us. That is why we stand today at the gate of Paradise, because He became a little baby for us in a cave hunted by Herod. And he went to His death for us and gave us His Cross as a sign of salvation, replacing the old circumcision with the new baptism of the heart.

At the end of our journey we shall find Him waiting for us if we can look humbly and see, in the light of the Resurrection, Pascha.

This is hard for us, because we live in a time and a culture when self-assertion is all, and it deceives us in many ways into idolatry, it can convince us falsely that our self-idolatry is for the benefit others, for example. Like fish in a goldfish bowl, we do not see the water in which we swim. Lent is a time for us to be a fish out of water, or rather, as St. Anthony the Great put it, a fish swimming in the pure ocean of the spiritually rich desert of God’s creating, not in our own bowl in a mirror of self-adulation.

Lent is a time for emptying ourselves in Christ, through the combination of repentance and forgiveness that is the stage of purification that, with God’s grace, leads to illumination.

Repentance means to turn around, to change heart. Forgiveness has the meaning of to give thoroughly or even to give ahead, to pay it forward in effect for all Jesus has done for us—the prefix “for” suggesting to us a parallel to “forward.

As the Orthodox Christian said when asked if he has been saved: “I have been saved through being brought into the Church of God, I am being saved through the mysteries of God’s Church and His grace, and I pray that I will be saved in the judgment after death and at the Second Coming of our Lord.”

Even so, as the Evangelist John wrote, come quickly Lord Jesus.

All I can offer from this little sinful heart of mine is forgiveness of those closest to me and my Church family at this gateway to Your suffering and victory for me, O my God.

Lord Jesus Christ, mercy me.