Tomorrow, Sunday, we enter the threshold leading to the great Pascha, to which we ascend through three phases that churn our journey toward Jesus and form our relationship with Him:
1. The first phase is the Paschal threshold, the period of preparation by repentance for going out into the fast, and it contains four stations and is crowned with “the station of forgiveness.”
2. The second phase is the way, that is, the period of the fast leading to the Bridegroom’s chamber; these days are a journey of love, where longing is kindled within us, and in them we are filled with Jesus and everything in us becomes a state of love. It contains five stations and is crowned with the Saturday of Lazarus where man receives the first fruits of Pascha, the personal resurrection, “the station of Lazarus.”
3. The third phase is the altar, where the divine love is manifested in its most astonishing image and example, and in it is union with Jesus. It contains eight stations and is crowned with the eighth station, “the station of the resurrection.”
1. The first phase:
The Paschal threshold: the period of preparation by repentance, the period of the self, the inner chamber, the decision, the stance, the seeking of forgiveness:
This phase is the period we usually call the period of preparation for the fast. It falls outside the fast but it is within us; it is the period in which we enter the inner chamber and journey to the depths for a retreat with the self in the heart. This threshold and entrance is the crowning of the end of the journey of repentance throughout the whole year. Throughout the year man struggled, worked, erred, and fell, and he comes to this threshold for purification, where each of us comes to wash with repentance and to be baptized with confession.
It revolves around man himself. Each one of us enters his chamber, strips himself, and sees himself as he is, with his errors, his sins, his deformities, and everything in him, and reviews them precisely; in it we take a decision, a stance, and an action, and we see it with the eyes of the penitent who longs for God. And thus we take off our shoes from our feet, strip ourselves, and cleanse ourselves like a bride preparing for the wedding. In this stage man is alone in his chamber (Mt 6:6), before himself and before God, and man casts away everything from himself, from his mind and his heart, and strips himself, relinquishing even all his thoughts, beliefs, and preconceptions — even his preconceptions about Jesus Himself, which he formed because of society, upbringing, and all the random ideas — that we may be ready to enter into a journey with Jesus and to see Him as He is, and ready to meet Him: «Rabbi, Teacher, where are You staying?»” (Jn 1:38), and then He leads us: “Come and see.”
And each station of the Sundays of this phase illuminates a different angle of man’s inner stature, just as the four Gospels each describe a different angle of Jesus’ stature. Thus this period depicts different scenes, and each one of us must be the protagonist in them, and we take a decision, a stance, and an action. So each one of us comes to know himself (the station of the publican), repents (the station of the prodigal son), condemns himself (the station of judgment), and forgives (the station of forgiveness).
And it extends over four weeks and is then crowned with the station of forgiveness — forgiveness from the heavenly Father — in preparation for going out to the way, to meet the Beloved. We set out on our journey with Jesus with a forgiveness from the Father, and then it ends when Jesus raises us up to the Father in the Ascension, deified.