I awoke yesterday morning and, as is customary, I checked my e-mail. My inbox was flooded with messages, starting with one from His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph, who always sends a Forgiveness Sunday message to his clergy asking forgiveness, and then the flood of return e-mails from all of us, begging electronically each other's forgiveness.
It strikes me as strange. It is perfectly reasonable for us to have this exchange, and yet we've not learned technologically to share that "kiss of peace" which for most of us "seals" the process of asking mutual forgiveness. The good news for us is that we have a short five weeks until most of us will be together to share that face-to-face kiss at our Annual Diocesan Clergy Retreat.
But the day was sweet for another reason, which is centered about the flock that God has given this sinful priest to shepherd. Today, the chapel was, if not full, at least filled. Those who came in faith came with the expectation of encountering one another at the deepest level of humility. And it was the greatest of blessings to share that "holy kiss" with them, each and every one of them, asking their forgiveness, and in turn receiving their own repentant pleas.
It is with such a start that we enter the season of the Fast. It is with that incredible joy of attaining to a fully repentant place, to being granted tears of repentance, and to feeling the sense that today, we go forward not harboring any animosity toward anyone. We go forward with a greater purity of spirit, which is the only way to seek that which the Lord is about to grant us.
Today, we begin to pray the wonderful penitential prayers of Saint Andrew of Crete. We begin to contemplate that which has passed in the year since we stood at this same place.
There is no subtlety in the words of Saint Andrew. He begins by showing me those places in my life where I have fallen to an even greater extent than our forefathers. He leads me to accuse myself of sinning more than Adam, more than Eve, more than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. He shows me in prayer that "there is no sin or act or vice in life that I have not committed. I have sinned in mind, in word and choice, in purpose, will and action, as no one else has ever done." And yet, through all of these heart-wrenching and soul-searching declarations, Saint Andrew never enters the realm of despair, but rather again focuses us on the loving mercy of our God and Savior. The prayerful examples he gives lead us back to life in Christ: "I have confessed to You, my Judge, the secrets of my heart. See my humility. See also my distress, and attend to my judgment now, and in Your compassion have mercy on me, O God of our Fathers." In the process of both the self-judgments and the pleas to our Lord for mercy, we repeatedly (unceasingly?) sing to Him, "Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me!" in the sweetest of penitential melodies.
Having entered the Fast through the Vespers of Forgiveness, let us continue this "good start" by immersing ourselves in the prayers of Saint Andrew, taking ownership of his words, seeing in his examples from the Old and the New Testaments those who have fallen before us, comparing ourselves to them, and then seeking the mercy of our God and Savior. It is in this way, in this "full immersion" start to the Fast, that we gain that foothold, that place from which we may, by our prayers, and by the prayers we offer for one another, ascend that Divine Ladder rung by rung, moving with joy through the Great Fast inexorably toward the Passion of our Lord.
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