His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon led the St. Vladimir’s Seminary community into retreat Clean Monday and Tuesday, as Great Lent began. His Beatitude delivered four meditations at the Seminary’s annual two-day Lenten Retreat, presenting reflections loosely built around his own experience of life in community.
“Whether we are speaking of the monastery, the family, or the Seminary community, we are both alone and yet never alone—striving in our own hearts to meet God, but also struggling to figure out how my brother, my wife, my husband, my professor, my student have a part in this….," he said.
“Certainly, we are all weak, frail, lacking in faith, lonely, and despondent at times,” he continued, “and these states are not always pleasant. But it is often in the midst of these experiences, which are in turn aggravated by our having to deal with others in our life, that we are able to receive fruit in our ascetical endeavors. This fruit is manifested in our hearts...[and] they are received in the community that we are a part of."
- Listen to each of Metropolitan Tikhon’s four Lenten meditations in their entirety below.
The Metropolitan was joined at the retreat by Orthodox Church in America (OCA) Chancellor Archpriest Alexander Rentel, Archdeacon and Secretary to the Metropolitan Joseph Matusiak, seminarians, faculty, staff, and members of the community. Classes were cancelled each day of the retreat and students were encouraged to practice silence. Each day, the Seminary community entered the chapel together several times for a fuller cycle of prayers in addition to His Beatitude’s meditations.
View the Three Hierarchs Chapel Calendar for the Seminary’s service schedule throughout Great Lent and Holy Week.
RELATED: Read Metropolitan Tikhon’s Lenten Archpastoral Message
