Second Sunday of the Great Fast – Gregory of Palamas, Tone 6; Our Venerable Father and Confessor Theophilactus; Bishop of Nicomedia (c. 845)
Great Fast Day 14. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated today.
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Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12
The Second Sunday of Lent is kept as a feast of Saint Gregory Palamas, the Archbishop of Thessaloniki in the fourteenth century. Like the restoration of the holy icons, this memorial of Saint Gregory has to do with historical events but also relates to our understanding of the Christian vocation, and the possibility for every Christian to achieve genuine holiness. Saint Gregory taught that all Christians are called to union with God, which is the object of the Christian life. Saint Gregory was a great ascetic, and a great master of the monastic life, but he taught that this invitation to union with God is open to every Christian. This is the challenge of Lent, but that challenge faces us all year round. Likewise, this is the challenge of monasticism, but not just for the monks and nuns. The Holy Father has expressed it very well: “…in the East, monasticism was not seen merely as a separate condition, proper to a precise category of Christians, but rather as a reference point for all the baptized, according to the gifts offered to each by the Lord; it was presented as a symbolic synthesis of Christianity.” (Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen, 9)
A reference point and a synthesis. The monks and nuns must always remember that in this way they are responsible to and for the whole Christian people, and all of us should seek to nourish our Christian lives with the values which the monastics particularly exemplify.
Saint Gregory Palamas himself has enjoyed increasing popularity in the past fifty years or so. His spiritual theology is not absolutely binding, but he is an important and influential figure in patristic spirituality. At one time, Saint Gregory’s ideas were highly controversial, and his memorial was removed from our liturgical books after the Synod of Zamost’. But with the recent profound studies of Saint Gregory, and the deeper appreciation of the Christian East, the Holy See restored Saint Gregory’s memorial on the Second Sunday of Great Lent in the Anthologion published by the Oriental Congregation. Our own Patriarch Joseph Cardinal Slipyj made a strong and positive contribution to this restoration of Saint Gregory Palamas to Catholic liturgical practice… the new English translation of the Lenten Triodion contains the full service to St. Gregory Palamas, and … this will increase our understanding of our spiritual and theological tradition.
Excerpt from Our Paschal Pilgrimage by Bishop Basil Losten