Saturdays of Lent

‘The Fathers often compared Lent to the forty years journey of the chosen people through the desert. From the Bible we know that in order to keep His people from despair, in order also to reveal His ultimate design, God performed many miracles during that journey; by analogy, the same pattern of explanation is given by the Fathers to the forty days of Lent.

Although its final destination is Pascha, the promised land of God’s Kingdom, Lent has at the end of each week a special “stopover” – an anticipation of that goal. It is two “Eucharistic” days – Saturday and Sunday – which in the spiritual journey of Lent have a special significance.

(Saturday’s) special liturgical status in our tradition and its exclusion from the lenten type of worship needs some explanation. From the point of view of “rubics”, .. Saturday is a day not of FAST but of FEAST for God Himself instituted it as feast: “and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:3)’

excerpt from our Tuesday night book study: Great Lent: Journey to Pascha by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.