(Cheesefare Sunday)

On my trips to India I have encountered two amazing people who have set the gold standard of ministry for me. You will have a chance to meet one of them next week: Bishop Ignatios of Madagascar, who was then Fr. Ignatios, the leader of the Orthodox Christian mission in India from 1991 to 2004. He was and is a remarkable man, and I hope that you will all make the effort to be present.

The other was Sister Nektaria, a nun from Greece who has worked at the mission off and on since 1991 and who currently leads the mission. She views her primary role to be the protection of the 100 or so orphan girls at our orphanage in Bakeswar, outside Kolkata. She is the walking personification of love, and the girls adore her. She can at times be strict with them, but always with love, and they know it.

On my last trip to India, about two years ago, I struck up a conversation with Sister Nektaria about how she came to be a nun and a missionary. She told me that she had grown up in the area of Corinth, Greece, and was one of many children. She was not particularly religious- she said that she was the least likely of all her siblings to be a nun-  but her parents insisted that she go to confession once a year. She went one day and during the course of the sacrament the father confessor gave her an “epitimion,” a directive. She was to read one line from the Bible each and every day. It was not much of a burden, but she just did not follow his direction. A year later it was time to go to confession again, and the priest asked her, “Did you do what I told you?” She said that for once she felt embarrassed that she had not followed such an easy request. The priest told her to try it again.

What is one line from the Bible? How long does it take to read it? This time she did as she was told, and starting from that one line a day she increased the amount that she read more and more. This was the beginning of her path towards God.

Tomorrow is called “Clean Monday” in the terminology of the Church; it is the first day of the Great Fast- Lent as it is called by many. If you count the days, there are 40 of them from tomorrow until the Friday before Palm Sunday, which this year falls on March 28. Lent is filled with rules and customs, such as church services on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, such as fasting from meat, fish and dairy products, such as spiritual readings and retreats and so on.

The customs are many, but the intention is one: our renewal as Christians, as children of God. We believe that in Holy Baptism we are born again of water and the Spirit, but that this does not make us perfect. Baptism is the beginning of our life in Christ, but not the completion of it. Because of laziness and carelessness and misdirection by the devil we all fall short of the glory for which God intended us. Life is a continuous renewal, but we have these special times in order to focus intensely on our spiritual lives.

In tomorrow’s designated scripture readings are the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1). I remember, too the words of St. Paul, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God,”. (Romans 12:2). Lent is about the most important issue in life itself, our relationship with God.

The story of Sister Nektaria and her epitimion teaches a powerful lesson, that small things can bring about major changes. We tend to focus on huge transformations, such as St. Paul, who was a fanatic enemy of Christianity until the day that Jesus personally confronted him, and such as St. Anthony, who one day went to church and heard something in the gospel reading that caused him to give away everything and depart on a path of solitude. But perhaps just as often or even more so, people are transformed by the small changes they make in life, such as reading one line from the Bible each and every day.

There are lots of small changes that you could make during Lent. I suggest that you select one and follow it with all your strength.