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Melkite Greek Catholic Church Information Center

Holy and Glorious Pascha Preparation - Great Lent and Great Week - Prayer

Great Lent and Great and Holy Week are the time of preparation for celebrating Feast of Feasts Holy and Glorious Pascha.

Traditionally, Great Lent and Great and Holy Week are a time of increased prayer.

We prepare by prayer. Prayer is an ancient form of spiritual discipline to intensify an awareness of Holy God. The idea of prayer is to bring us closer to Holy God, and to teach us self-control and dedication to Holy God.

Prayer is a means of spiritual growth. In prayer, we praise and thank Holy God for His great love and mercy, and we ask His forgiveness and seek His help in changing our sinful ways.

Prayer helps grow spiritually by putting us, as it were, in conversation with God and with other Christians. Our personal prayer, whether it is simply the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.") or recited prayers (such as the Rosary) or spontaneous prayer of praise and supplication, allows us to communicate with God, sharing our love, our needs, our need for forgiveness, our lack of charity, our dependence on God. In our public prayer, such as the Divine Liturgy and the Akathist Hymn to the Mother of God (the Medayah), we gather as God's children to do the same things, except as a community.

Prayer and Fasting

The article below was written by Rev. Fr. James Graham, Saint Elias the Prophet Melkite Greek Catholic Mission, San Jose, CA. The article appeared in News from St Elias Church, August 1, 2002.

"On the Sunday of THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE FIRST SIX ECUMENICAL COUNCILS, we read the passage from the Gospel of St Matthew about the healing of the demon-possessed boy (Matthew 17:14-23). Jesus tells His disciples that "this kind [of demon] can be cast out only by prayer and fasting." All of us have our own "demons" of one kind or another--anger, greed, gossip, neglect of our families, abuse of our bodies through drugs or alcohol or overeating or overwork, laziness, spiritual indifference, pride, vanity, disobedience, and so on. These things can be cast out by prayer and fasting, which bring us closer to God and strengthen our faith so that we can overcome our sinful habits. Of course, we cannot expect to be perfect immedi-ately, so we must not try a regime of prayer and fasting that is too strenuous. That will lead to failure, which will just reinforce the power of our "demons."

We should all set aside a time every day--for some it will be first thing in the morning, for some it might be just before going to bed--when we lift up our hearts to the Lord. We should acknowledge God's glory and power, God's great love and mercy. We should thank God for our blessings of life, health, fam-ily, friends, prosperity, etc. And we should ask God to take care of us in our needs and to take care of others who are sick or suffering or in need. But beyond that, we should pray at any time and at all times during the day--while walking the dog, or driving on the freeway, or shopping at the grocery store, while taking a coffee break or between classes or waiting in line, when mowing the lawn or cooking the supper or doing the laundry. Some people like to pray the Rosary. In our Byzantine tradition, the Jesus Prayer is more common, recited over and over again until in the back of our consciousness it begins "to pray itself". The Jesus Prayer is simple: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Fasting, too, should be simple. It is best not to make a big deal out of it. Sometimes, the more we try to focus on it, the harder it becomes. The traditional fast originated in the monaster-ies, where everyone ate the same thing (or fasted from the same thing!). In the modern world, it is almost impossible to keep that kind of fast in a simple way. It is better to choose some kind of fast that we can really maintain--such as not eating between meals and giving up meat at least on Wednesdays and Fridays. Although giving up meat entirely for two weeks is not terribly difficult. The idea of fasting is first of all to purify our bodies so that we can eliminate unnecessary things from our lives, and second of all to realize that all we have comes from God. We don't fast in order to suffer; we fast in order to understand God's place in our lives.

This period of preparation for the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God is a good time to work on prayer and fasting so that by stronger faith in God we can eliminate the "demons" from our lives."

Prostrations During Great Lent Prayers

The proper posture of prayer for Christians is standing. Standing signifies our dignity as children of God, and is a posture of attention. During Great Lent we kneel at certain prayers and touch our forehead to the ground as a sign of sorrow for sins, penance, humility, in imitation of the publican who "dared not life his eyes to heaven" and sent home justified.

Public Prayer

The Church intensifies public prayer by celebrating the Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Species, Al Madaayeh / Acathist Hymn / Akathist Hymn / Hymn of the Akathistos and Orthros.

Personal Prayer

Everyone is encouraged to intensify personal prayer, especially by using The Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian.

Lenten Prayer: Spiritual Reading for Great Lent

The whole time of Great Lent should be a time of increased prayer and reading the Bible. The Church especially recommends reading the Book of Genesis (the story of Creation and God's choosing His people), the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (prophecies of the Messiah), and the Book of Proverbs (practical advice for godly living) during Lent. The Psalms are always good spiritual reading, of course. Try reading one each day.

Great Lent is Forty Days.

Great Lent is Forty Days.   The 40-day count begins begins at the beginning of the Vespers of Clean Monday on the evening of the Sunday of Cheesefare/Forgiveness and ends just before the Vespers of Lazarus Saturday on the evening of the last Friday in Great Lent. Sundays do count.

Traditions

Traditions of Great Lent and Holy Week Melkite Greek Catholic Church Eparchy of Newton

More Information

Saint Ignatios of Antioch Melkite Greek Catholic Church Then click on Resources. The first category is Lenten Information.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Lent But Were Afraid to Ask St. George Melkite-Greek Catholic Church, Sacramento, CA

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Melkite Greek Catholic Church Information Center is dedicated to my cousins: Bucky (Richard C. Liles) and Shirley (Shirley Jean Liles Buck). Bucky fell asleep in the Lord on Dec. 12, 2000 and Shirley fell asleep in the Lord on Nov. 8, 2001.
O God of all spirits and of all flesh, who have destroyed death, overcome the devil, and given life to the world: grant, O Lord, to the souls of your servants Bucky and Shirley, who has departed from this life, that it may rest in a place of light, in a place of happiness, in a place of peace, where there is no pain, no grief, no sighing. And since You are a gracious God and the Lover of Mankind, forgive him/her every sin he/she has committed by thought, or word, or deed, for there is not a man who lives and does not sin : You alone are without sin, your righteousness is everlasting, and your word is true. You are the Resurrection and the Life, and the repose of your departed servants Bucky and Shirley. O Christ our God, and we send up glory to You, together with your eternal Father and your all-holy, good and life-givng Spirit, now and always and for ages upon ages. Amen.

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