Meditation for Cheesefare Sunday, Forgiveness Sunday
Matthew 6:14-21
This is the fourth and last of the Sundays of preparation for the fast; tomorrow we enter blessed Lent. On the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, Christ opens the doors of repentance and we set out on the road that leads to the fast, that is, humility. On the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, we fix our gaze on the Father, the goal of the fast. On Meatfare Sunday, the Sunday of the Judgment, we reflect on the importance of our neighbour, because it is with him that the works of love are done. And here, on Forgiveness Sunday, we give our neighbour the kiss of love so as to enter the fast joyfully, reconciled with God and neighbour, and so with ourselves. How do Scripture and the liturgy of this Sunday link fasting and forgiveness?
In our services, our prayers and the Gospel of this Sunday, all the themes revolve around two axes. The first is the commemoration of Adam’s expulsion from paradise, where he sat weeping. The hymns and readings compare the state of paradise with the state of humanity after the fall.
The second axis is forgiveness: asking God for forgiveness and granting forgiveness to our neighbour. These two axes, lamenting the expulsion from paradise and forgiveness from God and neighbour, meet in one theme: fasting.
Wasn’t the absence of fasting the cause of the transgression against God, and that disobedience the cause of Adam’s expulsion from paradise? Fasting is the means that will reconcile Adam’s children with God; so it is fasting that will grant us forgiveness in place of disobedience.
Cheesefare Sunday recalls two events. The first is Adam’s expulsion from paradise for breaking the fast: this is the moment of “estrangement” between God and man, and Scripture’s images of this event are harsh: God places a cherub at the gate of the garden with a flaming sword in his hand, and the picture seems stern about any possibility of reconciliation with God. The second event is a kind of announcement of God’s forgiveness, which comes with a condition: that we forgive others. This is the moment of “reconciliation” with God.
So we will be reconciled with God through fasting, which we must begin by forgiving and pardoning our neighbour. It may be easy to help a poor person and do good to a stranger. But the hardest thing is to forgive those close to us. Reconciliation is the love that rises above self-love and pride; it is proof that we have put our neighbour above some of our possessions and above our pride.
That is why the Church has set in her liturgy (and liturgy is the visible and practical way of living the faith) that all Christians gather on the evening of Forgiveness Sunday, today, for Vespers, at the end of which they exchange the kiss of peace and shake each other’s hands as a sign of reconciliation and perfect love, so as to enter the fast with joy and strength.
The Gospel text, after speaking of the need to forgive our neighbour in order to receive God’s forgiveness, moves on to fasting, which should come with signs of joy: we should not look “dismal” before others.
Yes, fasting is not a time of self-torture, nor a time to punish ourselves or pay off debts to God. Fasting is the time when brotherly love reigns and we feel God’s love and his radiant embrace. Fasting is the time when we don’t live fighting over a “morsel” of bread, but when our essential bread becomes the food of angels, that is, praise, and the feeding of our brothers and sisters, that is, love. The bread I keep for my own use is “matter”; the bread I put at the service of my neighbour is “spirit”.
And this is what we sing on the evening of this Sunday: “Let us begin the time of fasting with joy, giving ourselves to spiritual struggles; let us purify our soul and cleanse our flesh; let us fast from passions as we fast from food, and delight in the virtues of the Spirit.”
Behold, now is the acceptable time; now is the time of repentance. Let us begin it with the words, “Forgive me, my brother,” and enter the fast together with the kiss of peace. Amen.
Fr. Gerard Abi Saab
