There's Something Missing When Church is for Sundays Only

Each Sunday evening during the Great Fast, a special and uniquely lenten service is celebrated normally referred to as Vespers of Contrition. Vespers are started like a "normal" Saturday night Great Vespers but then after the entrance the curtain is closed, the cloths and veils are changed back to purple and the lights extinguished. It is quit moving to watch. When we witness this change from the Resurrection of Sunday to the contrition of the Lenten Weekday, we more fully can appreciate what Sunday is all about - The Glorious Resurrection of Christ. In our American Orthodoxy, when church is a thing just for Sunday and for "High Holy Days" we are missing the whole picture. During the Great Fast it is a bit more obvious with the colors changing, but throughout the entire year there continues to be something missing. I suppose for me, its is the Cross without which the Resurrection has no meaning (and vice versa) in our struggle to keep things in perspective.