An Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Cardoza, sees Great Lent as a period of ‘joyful sorrow,’ characterized by always looking ahead to the Resurrection and serving as a healing journey over 40 days.
An honest and heartfelt conversation between Orthodox Priest Fr. Seraphim Cardoza and Evangelical Pastor Perry Atkinson. Rev. Archpriest Seraphim Cardoza was a former evangelical pastor of a hippie church who found his way to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In 1995, he was ordained and assigned to minister to a small ROCOR congregation in Medford, Oregon, US.
Fr. Seraphim Cardoza passed away in October 2023.
Video source: theDoveTV (March 2013), watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/jemTgZP9nY0
Fr. Seraphim:
So, Lent… I think if we all were honest, we pastors, of course you’re not in the same boat, you’re over there, you’re one of the perfect ones, but if we pastors and priests, if we got honest, there’s probably some hidden unknown sickness, weakness, sin, and Lent, by the love of God, through the love of the Church, is there to help us locate that sickness and to be healed, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about giving up stuff. I hear about that: “Oh, what are you giving up for Lent?” Isn’t that sad? I don’t give up anything for Lent, but you know what I do: I make the great exchange if you will. I will do what mother Church asked me to do. This is how we talk. The Church is a mother and she loves us. Well Christ formed the Church, it’s the same one that He formed so it has to it has to be loved…
So we have this period of gradually uncovering this thing or these things. If we were all to get honest we would all say there’s none righteous, no, not one and we would all say like St. John, “he that says he’s without sin is a liar and the truth is not in him” [1 John 1:8]. And so we would all say how do I rectify that, how do I correct that, is it just a simple thing of raising your hand or is it just a one moment, one minute or maybe even a one week attempt? No…
I’d like to show you this one little…
[Host] Yeah let’s do that now this is a a minute video inside your church.
[Fr. Seraphim] It’s inside our parish and it’s really a normal service, it’s a normal service before we have our Sunday, our liturgy which is celebrating the Resurrection of Christ which is joyful, and of course when you receive Christ it’s joyful. This is just a regular service on a Saturday night it’s the time, is a little darker, a little more sorrowful, it’s joyful sorrow that leads to repentance. Why? Because the next morning we receive the body and blood of Christ and it’s joyful. Lent is the same way it’s a period of 40 days of sorrowful joy, joy-sorrow, you know what I’m talking about.
[Host] Yeah, let’s take a look at it, this is a one minute video of inside St. Innocent parish.
“Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice. Hear me O Lord” [Vespers, Psalm 140(141)]
“Lord, I have cried to Thee, hear me! Hear the voice of my prayer, when I cry to Thee.”
The film, the little clip, you just saw, that wasn’t sorrowful people like “Oh, woe is me.” Before that service, I remember that service, actually we had been to service every night that week, and long services, and we went through more Scriptures than our evangelicals go through in the whole year, so when we get this thing about: “Do you guys read the Bible?” I go “Oh…” When we started that service, Matushka, my wife and I said, “Such joy, look at the joy, you would think it’s Pascha [Easter] today.” You see… there’s joyful sorrow; joyful sorrow leads to repentance.
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