Redeeming The Time

Today most people know by "Cheesefare" or "Forgiveness Sunday," or the day we eat blini, but the liturgical theme of the day is the casting out of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Most people at least acknowledge that we must forgive to be saved, but the hymns of today teach another truth -- you will forgive if you are being saved. Today we lament about the greatest catastrophe in creation -- the fall of mankind in paradise -- and we enter into a period when we lament the loss of paradise and seek after it. Let us look at some of the hymns from the Triodion from this day, and the exciting call of the Apostle Paul to action: "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" and "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh." All these things teach us what our goal should be in great Lent and that we can reach it -- to regain some of paradise. Romans 13:11-14:4