Great Lent: A School of Repentance. Its Meaning for Orthodox Christians

“Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which radically alters our attitude toward everything in this world, including death. It makes it possible for us joyfully to affirm: "Death is no more!" Oh, death is still there, to be sure and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage”

— Alexander Schmemann

“As we make the first step into the "bright sadness" of Lent, we see”

— Alexander Schmemann

“...the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it. ... It is through her liturgical life that the Church reveals to us something of that which "the ear has not heard, the eye has not seen, and what has not yet entered the heart of man, but which God has prepared for those who love Him." And in the center of that liturgical life, as its heart and climax, as the sun whose rays penetrate everywhere, stands Pascha.””

— Alexander Schmemann

“Sad brightness": the sadness of my exile, of the waste I have made of my life; the brightness of God's presence and forgiveness, the joy of the recovered desire for God, the peace of the recovered home. Such is the climate of lenten worship; such is its first and general impact on my soul.””

— Alexander Schmemann

“We simply forget all this”

— Alexander Schmemann

“Զատկի կանխավայելումն է լուսավորում Մեծ պահքի շրջանի տխրությունը՝ մեր տքնությունը փոխակերպելով «հոգևոր զարթոնքի»: Գիշերը գուցե խավար ու երկար է, սակայն հորիզոնում ճառագում է խորհրդավոր, պայծառ առավոտը: «Մեզ մի՛ զրկիր մեր հույսից, Ո՛վ Մարդասեր»:””

— Alexander Schmemann