March 8th, 2026: Second Sunday of Lent

Glory to Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, we are on the second

Sunday of the Great Fast. I welcome you. I rejoice

together with you on this day. When I was a child,

well, back when I was young, back in the 60s,

we used to say youngsters. That sounds like grandpa's

talk. When I was a youngster living in Biloxi,

Mississippi, it was a heavily Roman Catholic

area because it had been founded by the French

and the Spaniards. Catholic kids would ask me,

you know, back then, it was not unusual, like,

what religion are you, would be asked by children

to each other. I'd say Orthodox and people like...

You're Jewish? And I'm like, no. But I really

couldn't say more. But they would also ask me

when Lent comes around, what are you giving up

for Lent? Because, of course, they're giving

up candy or whatever. Little did they know. So

we think of Lent, at least initially, as when

we do something. We fast. We come to church during

the week. We have matins, we have presanctified,

alms, the liturgy is longer. Alms, yes. Keep

in mind that the first two things are for us.

God doesn't need them. But the alms, we learn

in Matthew 25, is a way that we honor, we venerate

the Lord himself in that other person that we

think is probably not worthy. The least of these,

my brethren. Just as much as we honor Christ

when we kiss this icon, we honor Christ when

we serve somebody. It's the same thing. It's

veneration. So that third one is something that

is absolutely essential. And I think we know

from the gospel we heard some weeks ago, not

optional for us. It's a sign of our Christian

love. So yes, we do something during Lent, but

we soon discover in Lent that it is he, the Lord,

our Savior, Jesus Christ, that does something

for us. Catechumens, please be clear, you heard

that epistle reading from Hebrews. Did any of

the angels, did the Lord say, sit thou my right

hand till I make thine enemies footstool before

thy feet? No, this is Christ, the King, the Savior,

not some spiritual emanation. This is the Son

of God. Otherwise, whatever he does for you is

not going to help you any more than what I do

for you. He does something for us. Just in the

way that when we are very ill, we go to the hospital,

we're helpless on that bed, and it's the doctors

and the nurses that are doing something for us

and to us to heal us. That's what Christ is doing

in Lent. The fasting, the prayers, the alms,

of course. What is that but to allow us, to prepare

us, to give us capacity to receive God's grace,

God's activity, his deifying, his sanctifying,

his holy, his joyful, his mercy. Joyful mercy

in our hearts. So that our spiritual eyes, as

we say in some of the prayers, our noetic faculty,

the faculty of the heart, can be healed. Father

Maximus, the late monk Maximus, Anastasia Brother's

father, and a dear friend and mentor to many

of us, preached here in 2017. I shared that sermon

with you online. For this day, this second Sunday

of Lent. And he clearly explained why we need

this spiritual hospital of Lent. Which the church

brings us before Christ. He says this. Because

our spiritual senses are atrophied. In other

words, they're just not working. It's like I

had muscles once but I never used them so they

atrophied. Because our spiritual senses are atrophied

by the fall in the Garden of Eden. We are not

seeing, as we should, the ocean of God's light

and love. And that blindness, which is not the

will of God for us, can make this life seem like

a virtual hell with anxiety, uncertainty, fear,

and going continually in the wrong direction.

If you are a catechumen, please recall that Great

Lent is the time, the training, the spiritual

therapy, and for us too, that may have been baptized

even as children, we relive it, we redo it, so

that we will, the grace of God will be renewed

within us. It's preparing you to meet the risen

Lord. We meet, The crucified and risen Jesus

Christ. The real one. Not an imaginary spiritual

being. We meet him by doing something real. Picking

up our cross. That is denying ourselves. Saying

no to ourselves. Opposing ourselves. So we can

affirm the other person. So we can affirm God's

place in our life. We meet him by picking up

the cross and we follow him to Golgotha. And

the fasting and the prayers and the repentance,

it can be the cross for us. And very difficult.

It is a Golgotha because something in us is dying.

And that's sin. So something real, true. Who

you really truly are can live and blossom and

be fruitful. We follow him to the joy of Pascha.

And in all this effort, catechumens are long

time orthodox. We discover that Jesus Christ

is doing something for us. His providence, if

we keep our eyes open, and I can tell you I failed

miserably the first week of Lent. There were

so many instances when I look back. God was pointing

me in the right direction. I won't go into the

details now, but I guarantee you, if I had only

been more watchful and attentive to God's providence,

that first week of Lent would have gone very

differently for me. And I could have embraced

something much more profound than just living

on the surface. You discover that Jesus Christ

is doing something for you as you struggle and

as you fail, as I did. And failing is an important

part of Lent. It's built into it. So don't be

discouraged. Failure is a part of Lent. It's

okay. It teaches humility. It teaches that it's

not all you. But listen carefully. This gospel

account that we had today. The four friends bringing

the man to Jesus and couldn't get into the house

because it was so packed. What a glorious thing

that would be if this church was so packed, like

you were sitting right up to here, and we'd have

to walk across this with the altar service, and

there'd be no parking to be parking on the street

all the way up. That would be amazing. May God

grant that. May God grant that. You've heard

this gospel about the man and his four friends.

And all of us, the catechumens too, sense this

very much. You were brought here, like those

four friends brought that man. You were brought

to church by someone. If you were a baby, if

you were an adult, by somebody's prayers, by

somebody's hands, perhaps you were invited, somebody

prayed for you, you didn't even know it. For

all of us, that's true. Your godparents, your

parents, your friends, your former pastor maybe.

Your family. Maybe your sin. You were brought

here. This is an image of the church. Catechumens,

you're being brought before the Lord by the friends

of the Lord who trust him. You and I are in some

ways are absolutely helpless. You look at the

cross over here and what do you see? Christ having

given up all the glory of being the son of God.

Naked on the tree. Helpless. And only depending

on his father to raise him in glory from the

dead. He gave it all up. That's the way we're

going to be too. If we're smart, we will realize

right now, we are still helpless ahead of time.

And like the paralyzed man, if we're brought

to Christ, he will heal the spiritual atrophy

of our spiritual vision. He will forgive our

sins, those things that stop us from seeing the

glory, the light, the mercy, the ocean of God's

love that monk Maximus mentioned. Perhaps on

this day of the commemoration of the great saint,

the Athonite saint and the bishop of Thessalonica,

Gregory Palamas, which we commemorate on the

second Sunday of Lent, a way to honor him, at

least the way I'm capable of doing, is to quote

from his sermon for today. St. Gregory died in

1359. He died on November 14th. And because that's

the day of the Apostle Philip, the Athonite monks

felt after his death that his commemoration,

he was, icons are painted of him ten years after

he died. The Athonite monks felt that his memory

should be moved to the second Sunday of Lent

as a bridge. Sunday of Orthodoxy. What happens

when you live this Orthodoxy? St. Gregory Palamas.

And he shows us how to carry the cross, which

is our theme next week. St. Gregory says that

the paralytic represents our own soul. I can

relate. I seem pretty paralyzed most of the time.

The bed on which the paralytic lies, says St.

Gregory, is our body. And the four friends, let's

call them virtues, that's what he calls them,

who carry him represent... spiritual realities

that bring us to Christ. St. Gregory identifies

these four things. They are self -condemnation,

compunction, constancy in prayer, and commitment.

Self -condemnation, compunction, constancy in

prayer, and commitment, the four C's. Now, the

first word, self -condemnation, can sound harsh,

and we don't like that. Condemn myself. But St.

Gregory doesn't mean self -hatred. He means something

healthier. He means honest self -knowledge. To

stand before God without excuses. To not pretend.

To not blame others. But to be accountable. That's

self -condemnation. It's just being truthful.

Getting real about yourself. Takes courage. And

from that, honesty comes. And from honesty comes

the compunction, which is what? It's the softening

of the heart, a grateful sorrow, the sorrow that

produces joy, that opens us up to God. And that

compunction, that joyful sorrow, gives birth

to commitment. We sense the love of God in his

providence, and we will not leave him. And it's

a firm desire to be healed, no matter what. And

this commitment naturally leads to constancy

and prayer, wanting to be with the Lord, wanting

to speak to him and to feel his presence, the

longing to remain always in the presence of God.

These are the four friends that carry us. All

the things we build to avoid this self -condemnation,

this honesty, looking into our heart to accept

our condition, there's too much noise. That we

allow. And we can't even tell if we have a soul

sometimes. But repentance, the four friends,

leads to repentance. And that tears open the

roof, says St. Gregory. And the soul is lowered

before Christ. And this lowering is humility.

There at the center of the heart stands Jesus

Christ. And we are helpless and exposed before

him. But he loves us. And so we feel received.

We feel accepted. We don't feel a guilt trip.

We feel God's mercy. The soul line helpless before

the Lord. And what does Christ say? What does

he say to the man? He doesn't begin with the

man's paralysis. He says, son. Words of love.

Son, your sins are forgiven. His word unties

the knots that have bound us. Come to Christ.

Don't delay with your sins. And the noose, that

is the spiritual faculty of the heart, that thing

that is atrophied, that we can't see the ocean

of God's love around us. Even sustaining and

upholding the trees and the wind and the rocks

and the frogs and the lizards and all of that

stuff. We're freed from the chains of sin and

the paralysis of our passions and we become capable

of holding God's uncreated. life -sustaining,

deifying grace in our heart. We are free. Christianity,

this path of orthodoxy that St. Gregory speaks

about in just this simple sermon that he gave,

brings us freedom. He frees us from the fear

of death and from sin, and he speaks those healing

words, the next words that he says to that man.

Arise, take up your bed, and walk. And we are

going to walk as free creatures before God, brothers

and sisters, all the way through Lent now. This

is the liberating experience of deifying grace,

God's activity in this world, that St. Gregory

was so careful. to explain to his flock as he

was Archbishop in Thessalonica. This is the vision

that St. Gregory places before us today on this

second Sunday of Lent, and he reminds us that

we are created for this vision. We may feel extremely

far from it, like these are just sort of religious

-sounding words, but be assured, this is the

vision. We are called and invited and equipped

to have this experience so that Christ dwells

within us. Quoting Jesus Christ, St. Gregory

says, The kingdom of God is not far away. It

is within you when the heart is purified and

illumined by grace. Let's think about this during

this week and remember this is what God does

for us. Amen.