Sunday of Tyrini
It celebrates 49 days before Holy Easter.
The fourth Sunday of the Triod is dedicated to the expulsion of the originals from the paradise of truphi. Man was created by God as the most perfect and finest creation of God, as his “image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). He was made to live eternally in the grace and blessings of God, an endless life of unspeakable bliss. This is the meaning of the biblical story about the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2 ch.). Man misused his free will and chose evil. The arch-evil devil lured him into downfall and destruction. This deprived him of heaven, that is, of the eternal and life-giving presence of God and the communion of His pure blessings.
A great gulf was opened between them (Eph. 2:13). The Holy Bible symbolically mentions that the first creatures were expelled from the garden of Eden and two angelic beings were assigned to guard its gate with fiery daggers, so that they could not breach it. The endless drama of the human race has begun!
Adam and Eve then sat across from the garden of thorns and mourned the evil that befell them.
They reflected on their former bliss, compared it with their present misery, foresaw the future gloomily, and wept bitterly for it. Their hot tears watered the arid earth and their heart-rending cries shattered the tranquility of the desert paradise outside.
But unfortunately the mourning of the pioneers was not the result of repentance for their disobedience and rebellion against God. It was not an act of repentance and a request to God for forgiveness, but a utilitarian heartbreak. They did not mourn for the lost innocence and holiness, but for the lost material wealth of paradise. Not a single word of repentance was heard from their lips! The Fathers of the Church tell us that if at that tragic moment our forefathers had sincerely repented and humbly asked for forgiveness from the perfectly philanthropic God, they would have been restored to their pre-fall state.
