Readers of “Orthodox Truth” may remember my commentaries on the Genesis readings for Great Lent, which were posted in 2017 and, with revisions, in 2018. I’ve collected all of these essays, put them together with the assigned Genesis readings, and organized them for daily reading during Great Lent in the form of a book named The Eternal Sacrifice.
You can order The Eternal Sacrifice both in paperback and ebook formats at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen.
Here is the Preface, in which I explain the content and purpose of the book:
To the Pious Reader
I like short lists. When you have a short list, you actually get things done. This is supremely true in spiritual life, where we tend to overburden ourselves with impossible goals and end up doing nothing. “The better is the enemy of the good.”
To perform all the spiritual exercises of the Orthodox Great Lent is simply impossible. The Holy Fathers designed it this way, so that we would fall flat on our faces and realize that we are unspiritual people, which is the first step on the path to sanity (much less salvation). But to perform some of the Lenten exercises is certainly possible and, indeed, obligatory. If you cannot rouse yourself to do something – anything – beyond your usual devotions (or lack thereof) during the solemn Paschal Fast, you may as well stop calling yourself a Christian.
I offer you this little book as an aid to enjoying one of the treasures of Great Lent, the passages from the Book of Genesis read every weekday at Vespers during Lent, from Clean Monday through the eve of Lazarus Saturday. With few exceptions, most parish churches do not offer weekday services every day of Lent, though most try at least to open their doors on Wednesdays and Fridays. And even if one’s parish church is blessed to perform the daily sacrifice of praise, very few of her parishioners can simply stroll down the street and pop in to hear the service at leisure, because of the unChristian – not to say inhuman – demands of contemporary life. But one can take a little book to work or school and read a portion of the service for a few minutes during a break, or keep it by one’s favorite place to read at home. This is one such little book.
I call the book The Eternal Sacrifice to highlight one aspect of the typology of Genesis that speaks directly to the Paschal Mystery, that is, the types (foreshadowings, prophecies-in-action) of Our Lord’s supreme priestly Holocaust for us, the bloody Sacrifice of Himself on the altar of the Cross, which in turn became the basis for the Church’s daily mystical sacrifice of the Lamb of God forever slain for us, in the Divine Liturgy. When we participate attentively at the Divine Liturgy, and, supremely, when we receive His sacrificed, living, and true Body and Blood in Holy Communion, we step from this passing world into the eternal moment before the world, when the Lamb of God was already mystically slain in the Holy Trinity’s pre-eternal counsel for our salvation; we enter the in-time yet out-of-time moment of Our Lord’s Passover through death to life in His death on the Cross and rising from the Tomb; and we enter the eternal Kingdom, where we shall sit down and feast forever at the Banquet of the Lamb, and He Who Is, Who Was, and Who Ever Shall Be will give us Himself without end and without stint, always more and more, and more wondrously, forever.
So that you do not have to go back and forth from your Bible to this volume, I have incorporated the daily selections from Genesis into the book, followed each day by some pious thoughts which I hope will help you penetrate the sacred text for spiritual benefit. If only a few of these words do indeed spur you to greater love for Our Lord in His Sacrifice for us and thereby increase the grace you receive at your Paschal communion, please do think of their author on the Bright Night, and offer a prayer for
your servant in Christ,
Steven Allen, Priest
Great Lent, 2019
