Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our 40-day journey to Easter. On this solemn fast day, what better things for us to contemplate than our mortality, our reliance upon God’s mercy, our repentance—that continual act of turning to God—to clear out the refuse and pollution, and to ask Christ to reign in our hearts, to give the Spirit full reign to transform our hearts?

As Lent begins, we embark on a path, and one with a destination. Fr Alexander Schmemann, that beloved American Orthodox author, teacher, and priest, summarized the Lenten movement this way in his classic work, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha:

“As we make the first step into the 'bright sadness' of Lent, we see—far, far away—the destination. It is the joy of Easter, it is the entrance into the glory of the Kingdom. And it is this vision, the foretaste of Easter, that makes Lent's sadness bright and our lenten effort a ‘spiritual spring.’ The night may be dark and long, but all along the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon.”

As we progress on this way towards Easter, there are many texts to help us sense this "bright sadness" in our Lenten efforts: Psalm 51, the Requiem Mass, the In Paradisum, or the Canon of Repentance, just to name a few—recalling that the purpose of our journey is to walk towards (and arrive at) the resurrected Christ, and to be subsumed in him. The end of this journey is life!

I find that Arvo Pärt’s music is a perfect companion at this time of the year. Here is the final prayer after the long Canon of Repentance, and the English translation of the texts appears within the video.

Prayer after the Kanon, from Kanon Pokojanen, Arvo Pärt

Yours in Christ,

—Justin