In today’s reading, we hear the terrible words which are proclaimed aloud, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” but in the serenity of the Great Fast, other words, silently now but soon to be proclaimed, are spoken,“to those in the grave he granted life,” “you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your tombs to lead you, my people, up from their graves (Ezechiel 37:13), and “I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25)” God seizes death by the throat, and turns the curse of death into life, for “by death he trampled upon death.”

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras