February 24, 2026: Clean Tuesday, Sermon after the Great Canon Bishop Vasily

This is the pleasant life. We often understand

fasting, especially the late fasting period,

40 days or something connected with hardship,

difficulties, and very often this is true. There

is usually not only deprivation from foods, temptations

there is also and this is often is because the

time of the fast is also a time for us for repentance

but this is not a time for sadness this is the

time when the church calls us to greet and the

Lord himself indeed in the gospel calls us to

greet fasting with joy to anoint one's head with

oil. And really, to make this time, the Lord

makes this time, the time for promise and hope,

the time for our spiritual renewal. And indeed,

in those first few days of the fast, which are

maybe difficult because it's difficult to change

one's routine to change one's you know habits

and the church offers us the in her wisdom the

divine services of such incredible beauty we

nowhere throughout the year we have the service

like such as this the service of great compliment

where we offer to god the words of the Psalms,

the words of the hymns, the words of the Holy

Fathers. And in particular, our souls are so

richly nourished with the words of the great

canon, great penitential canon of St. Andrew

of Crete. And the Church offers this beautiful

work of liturgical, theological poetry to us.

Because in this canon, in this hymnographic composition,

of the great hymnographer, great father of the

church, St. Andrew of Crete from the 7th century,

offers to us the images from the Holy Scriptures.

He recalls to our mind everything from the Holy

Scriptures. And it tells us, the traparia of

the canon, the words of the canon tells us that

All of these images of the scriptures is not

just a collection of stories, collection from

a book which we can put on a shelf and read sometimes

and maybe forget about. But it's the words about

ourselves that the scriptures speak, not just

about what happened to the different persons

that were there. Moses, when we called Moses.

Hophni Phinehas and Absalom, all of these figures.

But all of this is the cause for us to take a

hard look at ourselves and our souls. Because

we say, when we read those words, we say that

it is my soul, my heart, my mind that has preferred

the flesh pots of Egypt over the promised land.

It is as one word of the one of the Traparia,

I don't think it was today, but it says that

I have made myself into an idol to myself. And

when we look, when we think about it, it is all

true. All of these words are true. That is the

root of all, I mean, and it's the state of fallen

humanity. And fathers of the church would say

that the root of all sins, not just sins, but

the sinful state of mankind is the love of self,

is a self -love, and that's the cause of it.

But we are the great canon. You notice perhaps

that when we got to the end of the canon today,

the Traparia now started speaking about Christ.

They spoke about John the Baptist and then spoke

about Christ. And so because all of these images,

all of these figures, all of these persons that

are mentioned, righteous and unrighteous, holy

and unholy, all of this was to tell us, to give

us promise and hope of fulfillment, of renewal,

of sanctification. transformation of our soul.

And this transformation of our soul is in Christ.

He is with Christ being formed in us. As St.

Paul says, our inward man is perishing, our outward

man is perishing, sorry, but our inward man is

being renewed. And this renewal is given to us

in Christ. And so that is why we're given those

words, we're given those texts to listen to,

to pay attention, to really apply to ourselves.

And when we read scriptures, we read the scriptures

also as speaking to us, speaking about ourselves,

about our soul, about our own path in Christ,

our path toward... are being glorified by Christ

and only in Him. They're telling us the truth

that we, how much accomplished we may be in ourselves

or not accomplished. The point is that the truth

about our being, truth of our existence, the

meaning of our existence is in Christ crucified

and risen from the dead. And this, we just started

on this 40 -something, 40 -plus day journey toward

Christ's cross and resurrection. And so this

journey from our being cast out of paradise last

Sunday to looking at the new tree of life, the

new tree of life where the fruit of life, Christ

himself, be blossomed forth, that is. or looking

at his cross and greeting Christ risen from the

dead with joy, with true joy, not just because

we can eat things again, but because this is

a promise of our destiny, promise of our own

resurrection, our own being in the kingdom. the

promise of paradise that is being with God. So

may this fast be to all of us the time for our

renewal in Christ, our time of remembrance of

our salvation, and the time for the renewal,

the rejuvenation of our souls. May you all have,

you and all of us, very blessed, fast, nourishing,

acceptable, and spiritually fulfilling. And so

that together we may walk as the Church on this

path toward the cross, tomb, and resurrection

of Christ. May the Lord bless you and keep you

in His love.