|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Sunday of the Judge
"0 Christ, You have given to Your Church a true commandment: to pray to God continually and at all times with spirit and understanding. You established the truth of Your commandment when You gave us an example bypassing the night in prayer to God, having willingly become man. O Christ, let us stand always before You with pure prayers, as the angels in heaven do." (Sharagan for the Fifth Sunday.)
The Sunday of the Judge gives us another parable about a "child of this world," a judge so jaded that he will not even help a poor widow (Luke 17:20-18: 14.) That widow is much like us, feeling helpless and worn down in this world in which the evil people seem to have all the success. Finally the judge is so tired of her pestering that he takes action on her behalf. Now, the parable asks us, if even such a godless man as the judge can finally be moved by the pleas of the weak, can we doubt that God in His infinite love for us will help us?
He will -- but He will also decide when. Our Creator knows our needs, and we must have faith that He will answer them at the proper time. This is the question for us: Do we trust God, even in our suffering, and believe His promise of justice for the oppressed? Do we pray and continue to pray, even when His answer does not come at the moment we would like? "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?"
The other readings (Isaiah 65:8-25, Philippians 3:1-4:9) exhort us to pray and remind us that present sorrows will fade to nothing in the light of the glory to come.
Sundays during Lent
The Sundays of Lent are guideposts in our journey to Easter. They take us through the history of God's relationship with us, from creation to today. Each Sunday has a theme and a sharagan, or hymn, explaining the theology of the theme. The Bible readings for each Sunday tell us what we should be doing at each stage of our Lenten life.
Sunday 5 |