Saturdays and Sundays break the intensity of the weekday fast. On Sundays we celebrate the Resurrection with the Divine Liturgy, and on Saturdays we remember the departed and lighten the fasting rules. Think of them as breathing room in the middle of a spiritual marathon.
During the week, we don’t celebrate the Eucharist at all. We serve the Presanctified Liturgy instead, where we receive communion from elements consecrated the previous Sunday. It’s somber. The church is darker, the hymns are penitential, and we’re supposed to feel the weight of our sin and our distance from God. But then Sunday comes, and suddenly we’re singing resurrection hymns again. The lights are on. We’re celebrating that Christ trampled down death by death. It’s a weekly reminder that Lent isn’t about wallowing in guilt, it’s about moving toward Pascha.
Each Sunday has its own theme, and they build on each other in a way that’s actually pretty brilliant.
The first Sunday is the Triumph of Orthodoxy. We’re celebrating the restoration of icons in 843 AD after more than a century of iconoclasm. Why start Lent with this? Because icons teach us that matter matters. God became flesh. He sanctified the material world. We can’t approach him as disembodied spirits, we need bread, wine, oil, water, wood, and paint. If you’ve been Baptist all your life and you’re wondering why we kiss these images, this Sunday answers that question.
The second Sunday honors St. Gregory Palamas. He’s the fourteenth-century monk who defended the practice of hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer and contemplative stillness. He taught that through prayer and fasting, we can actually experience God’s uncreated light, the same light the disciples saw on Mount Tabor. This isn’t just theological theory. It’s about what Lent is supposed to produce in us: real union with God.
The third Sunday we venerate the Cross. They bring it out and set it in the middle of the church, and we come forward to kiss it. This happens right at the midpoint of Lent, when most of us are tired of fasting and our initial enthusiasm has worn off. The Cross reminds us why we’re doing this. Christ suffered. We can handle giving up meat for another few weeks.
The fourth Sunday commemorates St. John Climacus, the monk who wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent. It’s a guide to the spiritual life, rung by rung, vice by vice, virtue by virtue. We read it during Lent because we need practical help. How do we actually fight anger? How do we cultivate humility? John doesn’t give us platitudes, he gives us a roadmap.
The fifth Sunday is for St. Mary of Egypt, the former prostitute who spent forty-seven years in the desert in radical repentance. Her story is extreme. But it shows us that nobody is beyond God’s reach, and no sin is too great for his mercy. If you’re dragging yourself to confession feeling like you’ve confessed the same sins a hundred times, Mary’s story says: keep going.
The Saturdays have their own rhythm. The first Saturday honors St. Theodore the Tyro and the miracle of the koliva. The second and third Saturdays are Soul Saturdays, when we pray for the departed. We’re not just fasting for ourselves, we’re fasting for our parents, grandparents, everyone who’s gone before us. In Southeast Texas, where most folks’ families are buried in Baptist or Catholic cemeteries, this can feel strange at first. But it’s deeply comforting. Death doesn’t cut us off from each other. We’re still family, still praying for one another.
Then comes Lazarus Saturday, which isn’t technically part of the forty days but leads directly into Palm Sunday. We celebrate Christ raising Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb. It’s a preview. A promise. Pascha is coming.
All of this builds. We start with the truth about icons and matter, move through prayer and the Cross and practical asceticism and radical repentance, and end with the defeat of death itself. By the time we get to Holy Week, we’ve been prepared. We’ve learned to see with new eyes.
If you’re new to Orthodoxy and you’ve never experienced a full Lent, I’ll be honest: it’s long. There are services you didn’t know existed. You’ll get tired. But show up on these Sundays. Let the Church teach you what she’s been teaching for centuries. You don’t have to understand it all at once. Just come, stand, listen, and receive.
