Forgiveness Sunday

Forgiveness Sunday (Cheesefare Sunday) and the Beginning of Lent

27 February 2025 at 09:10

Glory to Jesus Christ!

This coming Sunday, 02 March 2025, is Forgiveness Sunday, the last day before we enter the season of Lent. This day is also known as Cheesefare Sunday, as it is the last day we consume dairy items before we break the Fast together after the Paschal liturgy. (Please see Fr. Gregory with any questions regarding the Great Fast).

After the Liturgy on Sunday, we will serve a portion of Forgiveness Vespers, culminating with the Rite of Forgiveness.

The Rite of Forgiveness is a beautiful opportunity for each of us, recognizing our own sinfulness and need for repentance, to ask and receive forgiveness from each other. It is truly our gateway to Lent. As we ask and receive forgiveness from each other, the choir will begin to sing Paschal hymns in anticipation of the Resurrection of our Lord, which we will celebrate on the Feast of all Feasts, Pascha (Easter).

Please join us next week for the first of our Lenten services, beginning with the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete:

Monday, 03 March at 6 PM – Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete
Tuesday, 04 March at 6 PM – Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete
Wednesday, 05 March at 6 PM – Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

A full calendar of services for Lent, Holy Week, and Pascha will be posted soon.

The readings for Forgiveness Sunday (also the Sunday remembering the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden) are:

Romans 13.11-14.4 (Epistle)
Matthew 6.14-21 (Gospel)

Sunday of Forgiveness

16 March 2024 at 17:35

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Please join us on Sunday, 17 March 2024, for the Divine Liturgy followed by the Rite of Forgiveness, after which we will enter into the Great Fast (Great Lent).

All are welcome!

About the Rite of Forgiveness:

“… on the very threshold of the Great Fast, at Vespers on the Sunday of Forgiveness, there is a special ceremony of mutual reconciliation: for without love towards others there can be no genuine fast. And this love for others should not be limited to formal gestures or to sentimental feelings, but should issue in specific acts of almsgiving. … It is to give not only our money but our time, not only what we have but what we are; it is to give a part of ourselves”. — from The Meaning of the Great Fast, The Lenten Triodion. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Timothy Ware (St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002).

Forgiveness Sunday: The Expulsion of Adam from Paradise

22 February 2023 at 08:30

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

This coming Sunday, 26 February 2023, is Forgiveness Sunday. Following the Divine Liturgy we will serve the Rite of Forgiveness, the communal act of mutual forgiveness before entering into the Great Fast.

This Sunday is also Cheesefare, the last day for those fasting to consume dairy products before Lent. (But yet again, to loosely paraphrase St. Basil the Great: don’t forsake your cheese and milk only to consume your brother with anger!)

The Epistle and Gospel readings for Sunday are:

⁜ Romans 13:11-14:4 (Epistle)
⁜ Matthew 6:14-21 (Gospel)

About this Sunday we read from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website: “… The Sunday of Forgiveness, the last of the preparatory Sundays before Great Lent, has two themes: it commemorates Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, and it accentuates our need for forgiveness. There are obvious reasons why these two things should be brought to our attention as we stand on the threshold of Great Lent. One of the primary images in the Triodion is that of the return to Paradise. Lent is a time when we weep with Adam and Eve before the closed gate of Eden, repenting with them for the sins that have deprived us of our free communion with God. But Lent is also a time when we are preparing to celebrate the saving event of Christ’s death and rising, which has reopened Paradise to us once more (Luke 23:43). So sorrow for our exile in sin is tempered by hope of our re-entry into Paradise… | continue reading at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website.

Sunday of Forgiveness (Cheesefare)

12 March 2021 at 09:00

This coming Sunday, March 14, is the Sunday of Forgiveness. It is also the 4th of the pre-Lenten Sundays and perhaps more commonly known as Cheesefare Sunday or simply Cheesefare. This Sunday remembers the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, as well as marking the last day of eating cheese or cheese products until the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection on Pascha.

After the Divine Liturgy we will be celebrating a portion of Forgiveness Vespers, followed by the Rite of Forgiveness. Covid-19 precautions will be followed.

The Gospel reading for the Sunday of Forgiveness is Matthew 6:14-21. Building on the themes of the previous Sunday’s (repentance and judgement), we are now – as always – prompted to orient ourselves toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

As Fr. Alexander Schmemman reminds us:

Now, forgiveness stands at the very center of Christian faith and of Christian life because Christianity itself is, above all, the religion of forgiveness. God forgives us, and His forgiveness is in Christ, His Son, Whom He sends to us, so that by sharing in His humanity we may share in His love and be truly reconciled with God. Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a return to it, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season. Thus, truly forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for the Lenten season.
Forgiveness Sunday | Orthodox Church in America

Great Lent Begins

10 March 2019 at 19:00

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen
Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Today, along with all Orthodox Christians world-wide, we began the journey of Great Lent with the Rite of Forgiveness at the end of Vespers. (In many parishes it is common to celebrate a portion of “Forgiveness Vespers”, along with the Rite of Forgiveness, after the Sunday Liturgy as opposed to the evening proper).

As the choir sang selected hymns from the Paschal Canon – hymns we won’t hear again until Great and Holy Pascha – the faithful, one-by-one, asked each other for mutual forgiveness (cf. Gospel of St. Matthew 6:14-15) and the altar vestments were changed to purple to reflect the penitential mood of the season.

We wish everyone a fruitful and joyous Lent as we turn anew to seek the Lord.