Forgiveness Sunday and Great Lent
who makes arbitrary prohibitions and is simply looking for an excuse to punish the slightest disobedience.
But it is not God who has alienated us from him; it is we who have alienated ourselves from God. We have to live with the consequences of what we have done.
And so the object of our Lenten fasting is not to deflect the anger of an ogre God, but rather to control the cravings and passions within us that alienate us from God. As it was food that caused the alienation in Adam and Eve, so we seek to bring our desire for food under control, and to substitute for it the desire for God.
In all this, God loves us, and wants us to draw closer to him. So we must also put away all hatred and self-centredness. Before we can ask God's forgiveness, whether for stealing bananas for starting a war in which thousands of people die, we need to forgive each other. And so that first Vespers of Great Lent ends with the act of forgiveness, the priest and people prostrating before each other, and asking for, and receiving, forgiveness from each other. Only then are we in a position to seek forgiveness from God.
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