Friday, February 26, 2016

Commemoration of Saint Photina (Orthodox), The Woman at the Well

Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Isaiah 55:1 “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!”

            Lent in the early days of the church was a time of learning and preparation for new converts awaiting baptism at the Easter vigil. In the darkness of the spring night, the converts faced the west and three times renounced all forces that would separate them from God. Then they faced east, faced the direction from which the Easter dawn would soon break upon them, and three times were immersed, naked and vulnerable, into flowing water or pool. Thirsty souls began a new life in water and God’s Word. "The water you enter is like a crucible in which you are reshaped to a higher nature", wrote Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) in a catechetical sermon. Ho, everyone who thirsts, come!

O God, fountain of life, from you all life springs. May we always seek out your living water when we are dusty and dry. Amen

·       Place a bowl of water on your altar. Make the sign of the cross with it.