(1) The Pre-Lenten Period. (a) The Sunday o f Zacchaeus. One week

before the Triodion enters into use, there is a Sunday Gospel reading which looks forward directly to the coming fast - Luke 19 : 1 - 1 0 , describing how Zacchaeus climbed a tree beside the road where Christ was to pass. In this reading we note Zacchaeus’ sense of eager expectation the intensity of his desire to see our Lord, and we apply this to ourselves. If, as we prepare for Lent, there is real eagerness in our hearts, if we have an intense desire for a clearer vision of Christ, then our hopes will be fulfilled during the fast; indeed, we shall, like

Zacchaeus, receive far more than we expect. But if there is within us no eager expectation and no sincere desire, we shall see and re­ ceive nothing. And so we ask ourselves: What is my state of mind and will as I prepare to embark on the Lenten journey?51 (b) The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee (Gospel reading: Luke 1 8: 10 -14 ). On this and the following two Sundays, the theme is repentance. Repentance is the door through which we enter Lent, the starting-point of our journey to Pascha. And to repent signifies far more than self-pity or futile regret over things done in the past. The Greek term metanoia means ‘ change of mind’ : to repent is to be re­ newed, to be transformed in our inward viewpoint, to attain a fresh

way of looking at our relationship to God and to others. The fault of

the Pharisee is that he has no desire to change his outlook; he is

complacent, self-satisfied, and so he allows no place for God to act within him. The Publican, on the other hand, truly longs for a ‘ change of m in d ': he is self-dissatisfied, ‘poor in spirit’ , and where there is this saving self-dissatisfaction there is room for God to act. Unless we learn the secret of the Publican’s inward poverty, we shall not share in the Lenten springtime. The theme of the day can be summed up in a saying of the Desert Fathers: ‘ Better a man who has sinned,if he knows that he has sinned and repents, than a man who has not sinned and thinks of himself as righteous.’ 52 (c) The Sunday of the Prodigal Son (Gospel reading: Luke ig : 1 1 32). The parable of the Prodigal forms an exact ikon of repentance

in its different stages. Sin is exile, enslavement to strangers, hunger. Repentance is the return from exile to our true hom e; it is to re­ ceive back our inheritance and freedom in the Father’s house. But repentance implies action: T will rise up and go. . . ’ (verse 18). To repent is not just to feel dissatisfied, but to take a decision and to act upon it. On this and the next two Sundays, after the solemn and joyful words of the Poly cl cos at Mattins, we add the sorrowful verses of 51 On the Sunday before that of Zacchaeus, the Gospel reading is sometimes Christ’s meeting with the Canaanitc woman (Matt. 1 ς : 2 1 - 8 ) . Here the spiritual meaning is the same as for the Sunday of Zacchaeus. The woman’s daughter was

healed because o f her mother’ s fa ith and persistence. Similarly in Lent we need living faith that Christ can heal us, and to this we must join persistent prayer. Then all things are possible. 52 Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection, Sarmatas 1.

Psalm 136, ‘ By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. . This Psalm of exile, sung by the children of Israel in their Baby­ lonian captivity, has a special appropriateness on the Sunday of the Prodigal, when we call to mind our present exile in sin and make the resolve to return home. (d) The Saturday of the Dead. On the day before the Sunday of the Last Judgement, and in close connection with the theme of this

the ages’ . (There are further commemorations of the dead on the

second, third and fourth Saturdays in Lent.) Before we call to mind

mend to God all those departed before, us, who are now awaiting

the model o f ascetics, so the fifth celebrates St. Mary o f Egypt, the

model of penitents. Like that of St. John Climacus, her feast has been transferred from the fixed calendar, where she is commemora­ ted on i April. Her life, recounted by St. Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem - it is read, as we have mentioned, on Thursday in the