remembered Zion".
In these words of the Lenten psalm, we Orthodox Christians, the New Israel, remember
that we are in exile. For Orthodox Russians, banished from Holy Russia,
return to our true home, Heaven
For us the Great Fast is a session of exile ordained for us by our Mother, the Church,
to keep fresh in us the memory of Zion from which we have wandered so far. We have
deserved our exile and we have great need of it because of our great sinfulness. Only
through the chastisement of exile, which we remember in the fasting, prayer and
repentance of this season,
Do we remain mindful of our Zion?
Weak and forgetful, even in the midst of the Great Fast we live as though Jerusalem did
not exist for us. We fall in love with the world, our Babylon; we are seduced by the
frivolous pastimes of this "strange land" and neglect the services and discipline of the
Church which remind us of our true home. Worse yet, we love our very captors - for our
sins hold us captive more surely than any human master - and in their service we pass in
idleness the precious days of Lent when we should be preparing to meet the Rising Sun
of the New Jerusalem, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is still time; we must remember our true home and weep over the sins which have
exiled us from it. Let us take to heart the words of St. John of the Ladder: "Exile is
separation from everything in order to keep the mind inseparable from God. An exile
loves and produces continual weeping." Exiled from Paradise, we must become exiled
from the world if we hope to return.
This we may do by spending these days in fasting, prayer, separation from the world,
attendance at the services of the Church, in tears of repentance, in preparation for the
joyful Feast that is to end this time of exile; and by bearing witness to all in this
"strange land" of our remembrance of that even greater Feast that shall be when our
Lord returns to take His people to the New Jerusalem, from which there shall be no more
exile, for it is eternal.