The Pre-Lenten Sundays

The Church does not begin its greatest fast abruptly. Three weeks before Clean Monday, the Triodion — the book of Lenten services — is opened, and its first hymns appear in the Sunday services alongside the ordinary resurrection hymns. From that point the themes tighten week by week, and even the diet tapers in stages: meat is bidden farewell one Sunday, dairy the next. By the time Great Lent arrives, nothing about it is a surprise.

A note on counting: Greek service books begin the season, and the count of its Sundays, with the Publican and the Pharisee — the first Sunday of the Triodion. In Slavic usage a herald comes a week earlier still: the Sunday of Zacchaeus, when the Gospel of the tax collector who climbed a tree to see Christ (Luke 19) is read, though the Triodion itself is not yet opened. Either way the shape is the same — a season of announcements before a season of effort.

The first Sunday of the Triodion reads the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14): the scrupulous religious man goes home unjustified, and the despised tax collector, who can only say "God be merciful to me a sinner," goes home justified. Placed at the head of a fasting season, the parable is a warning label: everything Lent asks can be poisoned by pride in the doing of it. The Church presses the point with its calendar — the week that follows is entirely fast-free, even Wednesday and Friday, precisely so that no one begins the season boasting like the Pharisee, "I fast twice in the week."

The second Sunday reads the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) — the far country, the coming to himself, and the father who runs "when he was yet a great way off." It is the Gospel of return, read before the season of returning. From this Sunday, in many churches, Matins adds the exiles' psalm, "By the rivers of Babylon" (Psalm 137) — the faithful singing as people far from home who intend to walk back.

The third Sunday is the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), called Meatfare because it is the last day meat is eaten before Pascha. After two Sundays of mercy the Church shows the other edge: repentance has a deadline and love has a test — "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The Last Judgment has its own entry. The Saturday before is the first of the Soul Saturdays, when the Church prays by name for all its departed before rehearsing the Judgment they and we await.

The fourth is Cheesefare Sunday — the last day for dairy — also called the Sunday of Forgiveness and of the Expulsion of Adam. The hymns stand Adam outside the closed gates of Paradise, weeping for what he lost, and the Gospel (Matthew 6:14-21) gives the fast its entry requirement: "if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." That evening, at Forgiveness Vespers, the parish asks and grants forgiveness person by person — the rite, and the practice of mutual forgiveness generally, are treated in their own entry. When it ends, Lent has begun.

The pre-Lenten Sundays are the Church's own answer to the perennial question of how to have a good Lent: do not improvise one. Take the four Gospels in order — pray like the publican, turn back like the prodigal, love the people in front of you as if the Judgment were tomorrow, and forgive everyone everything before Clean Monday. The fasting details can be settled with a priest (see the fasting entries); the four tools are non-negotiable, and the Church spends three full weeks placing them in your hands.