Fr. Touma Bitar
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
He came to me with the question, "I do not pray very much lately. I think I'm falling into negligence. What should I do to bring my prayer back?" If you truly want to bring your prayer back, then you are able to do this in an instant. Through prayer you acquire prayer. Prayer is an act of will. Pray regularly. A little or a lot? It doesn't matter. With feeling or without feeling? That doesn't matter either. You begin with the body, with words and motions. What's important is that you do it attentively.
Archpriest Andrew Phillips
This Sunday is known as Forgiveness Sunday, and also Cheesfare Sunday for it is the last day on which we may eat dairy produce. On it we remember the Fall of Adam and Eve and how they lost Paradise by eating 'the forbidden fruit', which is why we fast, eating only 'the permitted fruit'. How exactly did that Fall happen?
Rating: 2|Votes: 1
At the onset of Great Lent and a period of intense fasting, this Sunday reminds us of our need for God’s forgiveness and guides our hearts, minds, and spiritual efforts on returning to Him in repentance.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
Rating: 4|Votes: 3
Mercy will present to Christ also those who were only able to show mercy to themselves, who visited themselves with self-criticism and freed themselves from the poverty, sickness, and prison of sin through repentance. Repentance is impossible for the hardened heart: the heart must be softened, filled with sympathy and mercy toward its catastrophic state of sinfulness.
James Iliou
In the parable we are told and in our minds we think of the younger as being the Prodigal. But which one of these two brothers is truly the Prodigal Son? Is it the younger who leaves and comes back in repentance, or the older brother who refuses to welcome him back? I
