On the week following Meat Fare Sunday a limited =fasting= is prescribed. We must train and prepare ourselves for the great effort of Lent. On Wednesday and Friday the Divine Liturgy is not served and the type of worship is already Lenten. On Cheese-Fare Saturday the Church commemorates all men and women who were "illumined through fasting"--the Holy Ascetics and Fosters. They are the patterns we must follow, our guides in the difficult art of fasting and repentance. 4. Forgiveness (Cheese Fare Sunday) This is the last day before Lent. Its liturgy develops three themes: (a) "=the expulsion of Adam from the paradise of bliss.=" Man was created for paradise--for knowledge of God and communion with Him. His sins have deprived him of this blessed life and his existence on earth is an exile. Christ, the God-man, opens the doors of Paradise to every one who follows Him and the Church is our guide to the heavenly fatherland. (b) Our fast must not be hypocritical, a show off. We must "appear not unto men to fast, but unto our Father who is in secret" (cf. Sunday lesson from Matthew: 6:14-21). (c) The condition for such real fasting is that we =forgive each other= as God forgives us--"If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you...." On the evening of this day, at Vespers, Lent is inaugurated with the Great Prokimenon: "Turn not away Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. Attend to my soul and deliver it." At the end of the service the faithful ask forgiveness from one another and the Church begins her pilgrimage towards the joyful and glorious day of Easter. LENTEN WORSHIP The Great Lent consists of six weeks or forty days. It begins on Monday after Cheese Fare Sunday and ends on Friday evening before Palm Sunday. The Saturday of Lazarus' Resurrection, Palm Sunday and the Holy Week form a special liturgical cycle with which we shall deal in a special pamphlet.[1] The meaning and the spirit of the Great Lent find their first and most important expression in worship. Not only individuals but the whole Church acquires a penitential spirit, and the beautiful Lenten services more than anything else help us to deepen our spiritual vision, to reconsider our life in the light of the Orthodox teaching about man. We shall briefly analyze the most important of the liturgical particularities of Lent. 1. The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete