Friday, February 10, 2023

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

Hello friends and happy Friday! It's hard to believe that it's nearly mid-February already, and Great Lent is fast approaching! I know that many people dislike this post-holiday winter time of year more than any other, but I truly like it. I have a couple of enjoyable celebrations in January and February (my wedding anniversay, my birthday, Valentine's day) but I also treasure the start of Lent each year, and with few exceptions that also falls in Febuary! This in fact the case this year, and we have just over two weeks before all of the Lenten goodness will begin, hee hee, and my planning process is in full swing! I'll circle back to that in a moment.

This past Sunday was another themed on in the leadup to Great Lent in the Byzantine rite, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. We went old school though, if you will, in that we attended Mass at our Latin rite parish. Our Byzantine rite priest was out of town, so the only Divine Liturgy offered was in Ukrainian. The kids and I agreed it was a good week to visit back with our registered parish. 

And it was lovely. We've gotten so used to going to church earlier on Sundays (9 am Divine Liturgy) that we got up and went to the 8 am Mass rather than our habit of 11 am. I mean, the children actually advocated for the earlier timeslot, I was in disbelief. :-0 This coming weekend we're looking forward to heading back to Divine Liturgy, and it's Meatfare Sunday! 

*praise hands*

In the meantime, I've been making my plans for Lent. I am planning to make my way through "Set the World on Fire" a personal retreat featuring writings from the female doctors of the Church, and I am STOKED. It should take about a month to work through, so I'm planning on starting early on in Lent to free up space to prepare for and participate fully in Holy Week. Interestingly, in the Eastern rites, there is no Ash Wednesday tradition, Great Lent starts the Monday after Cheesefare Sunday (so this year, that is February 20th in the Gregorian Calendar). So I'll likely begin the retreat either that Monday the 20th, or the following week of the 27th. I'll keep you posted in case anybody else wants to read along! And we'll talk all about these Byzantine rite Great Lent tidbits more in the coming weeks as this all comes to pass!

How are all of your Lenten plans coming along?

1 comment:

  1. Our King Cake arrived from New Orleans today :) (that counts as Lent pre-prep, right?!)

    ReplyDelete

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