Today is the last Sunday before Lent begins for us. (We celebrate Pascha [Easter] at a different time than Protestants and Catholics, so Lent begins at a different time.) It's commonly called Cheesefare Sunday, because it's when we say Farewell to all dairy products. We've already said Farewell to all meat last Sunday. More officially it's known as Forgiveness Sunday because we have a service where everyone in the parish asks everyone else in the parish to forgive them. Being at college, I'm a parish of one at the moment, so I just did the rest of the service. (If you're interested, you can read the text of the service HERE.)
I really like the Forgiveness Vespers because so often we think of forgiveness as a very in your head sort of thing. But in this service we actually literally fall down before each other and ask the other person's forgiveness and then embrace. It's a very real thing, and I think that it's significant that on Pascha we also embrace each other, bringing it around full circle.
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Forgive me, my sister.
I forgive you, forgive me if I have offended you in any way.
Do you not have a church at all nearby?
(Orthodox, I mean)
There's a very small Greek mission that meets twice a month. I've gone to that a few times and haven't really clicked with the people there. Nothing wrong with them, they've been very friendly, but it was just an odd situation, so I don't go very often.
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