Lent is the School of Repentance

            Lent is the “school of repentance.” Although a man is baptized but once for the forgiveness of sins, there necessarily follows the daily conversion, since: in this life we have received only the first fruits of the Spirit, and regeneration is not as yet perfect but has only begun in us.  The conflict and warfare of the flesh against the Spirit continues in this life even among those truly reborn in Baptism.  This sort of continued conversion, whereby regenerate, Christians, feel the “daily need to turn with a contrite heart from unbelief and its evil fruits to the free grace of God for the remission of their sins and the renewal of their lives.”

            This is nothing but daily repentance, and daily conversion.  Lent is officially therefore the  demarcated period where “the church enters into her annual period of recollection, sorrow, and mourning,”  for the sake of her children who might be aided in their “effort” and “co-operation” with the grace of the Holy Spirit, to turn from their sinful life.

 The first Sunday of Lent also known as the Sunday of Good Living or Poon Paregentan, recalls the former life enjoyed by our first parents Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The event of their expulsion is symbolized by the filling of the holy altar during the Lenten period  .

This second Sunday of Lent, in consideration of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, we are corporately and individually reminded not only spiritually but also in the flesh, how sin has dissociated us with eternal life and communion with the Holy Things. The on-going Lenten prohibition from the Altar and the fruit of immortality more vividly demonstrates the need for conversion and the completion of the journey that leads to the fulfillment of Christ’s sacrifice and victory at the dawn of the Paschal morning.