This Sunday is the last day before the beginning of Great Lent, our 7-week journey to Pascha on April 12. (The Pascha service actually begins just before midnight on Saturday, April 11, and is followed by feasting till dawn. All Christians should experience this at least once in their lives.) But Lent begins at Sunday evening Vespers, followed by the ancient rite of forgiveness.

That’s when we line up and stand face-to-face with every member of the church in turn. We bow to them, honoring the presence of Christ in them, and say “Forgive me, my brother (or sister), for all my sins against you.” You put it in your own words, however you want to say it. That person says “I forgive you,” then goes on to say, “And forgive me for all the ways I have sinned against you” (phrasing it however they like.)

Even if there was no deliberate sin aimed against this person, you still ask forgiveness for contributing to the world’s burden of sin. A friend of mine says, “Forgive me for the way my sins pollute the world you have to live in.” I don’t know how ancient this rite is; the earliest reference I’ve seen occurs in the story of St. Mary of Egypt, at a monastery in the Holy Land about AD 500.

Here’s a chapter from my book Facing East, describing the Rite of Forgiveness at Holy Cross Church near Baltimore, MD. (We were then renting Sunday morning space in an old school building.) I wrote this book back in 1995, and yet it is still timely, since these things never change.

[At the end of Vespers on Sunday afternoon—]

We sing through the dismissal, but no one moves to go. My husband turns from the altar to stand before the gathered worshippers. “Now we are going to do something the Devil hates,” he says. “Any time brothers and sisters in Christ stand face to face, and ask for each others’ forgiveness, and give forgiveness, the demons shudder. We intend here,” he went on, “to build an outpost of the Kingdom of God. These outposts are built brick by brick, person by person. With every act of forgiveness, we extend the Kingdom of God in our midst.”

He gives directions for all the worshippers to form a long line, extending to his left; they move into place, standing along the side-wall and facing the center of the room. Then he says, “The first person in line–in this case, my son David–will stand in front of me. He’ll make a prostration or a metania–you can do whichever you want–and ask for my forgiveness. And you can say this however you want: ‘Forgive me for all my sins against you,’ or ‘Brother, please forgive any way I have offended you,’ or any variation, whatever comes naturally. I’ll offer forgiveness, then I’ll bow to him and ask him to forgive me as well. Then we’ll embrace.

“After that, David, you’ll move over here to my right. The next person in line will go through the same forgiveness process with me, then with David, then stand on David’s right. And so forth; we’ll continue until everyone has moved over to my right side, and every person here has exchanged forgiveness with every other one.”

The six of us in the choir begin singing quietly the song that we will trumpet on Pascha morning: “Let God arise! Let his enemies be scattered!” Gary and David stand face to face, or as nearly so as they can; David at 15 is several inches taller than his dad. David’s dark blond hair curls on his shoulders and his blue eyes behind wire-framed glasses are wide and peaceful; this son is a quiet, centered sort. I watch father and son bow to each other, and murmur unheard words. The rest of the congregation watch quietly, and David looks a little awkward; he hates being the center of attention. David and Gary embrace, and tears sting my eyes. I look quickly back to the music.

A moment later I look up to see David embracing his younger brother Stephen. Where David is a cool stream, Stephen at 13 is a geyser, full of passionate opinion, deep sentimentality, wide-flinging love and, not infrequently, anger. There were things to be forgiven there. The brothers embrace, David bending stiffly over; powerhouse Stephen is compact, nearly nine inches shorter.

By the time the choir finishes the anthem and joins the end of the line, about half the worshippers have moved to my husband’s right. One at a time I bow to people I worship with every week, looking each one in the eye, men and women, children and aged. Each interchange is an intimate moment, and I feel on the wobbly border between embarressment, laughter and tears. Just to pause and look at each fellow worshipper for a moment, to see the individual there, is itself a startling exercise.

Individuals respond to the ritual in individual ways. When I ask 12-year-old Melanie to forgive me, she says, “Not that you’ve done anything, but okay.” Basil is giving out enveloping bear hugs with exclamations of “Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus!” His son Michael offers a courtly, “I forgive, as God forgives.” Choir director Margo is teary-eyed as she hugs me, and bursts out in a whisper, “I love you!” Down the line, as worshippers dip and bend, embrace and move aside, it looks like a dance, a dream-paced country dance laced with dreamy smiles.

I come to my daughter Megan, who will be eighteen in a few days. She has made it safely to adulthood past an adolescence that had it rocky places; yes, there are things to forgive here too. I bow to her and manage to say, past the lump in my throat, “Megan, please forgive me for any way that I have offended you.” I could think of a million mistakes I had made. She looks at me, her lashes wet, and says, “I forgive you, Mom.” Then she bends to touch the floor and stands again, and says to me, “Please forgive me, Mom, for everything.”

Can a mother do such a thing? You bet. A moment later we are in a marshmallowy embrace.

Back in the cafeteria Rose is packing away the book table, putting everything in boxes until next week. Her husband, Tom, is sitting nearby at one of the dining tables; Rose doesn’t permit help with this careful process. Tom is wearing a happy, somewhat surprised expression.

“That wasn’t so bad!” he says as I come in the room. “You know, I’m not one of those people that’s big on hugging. I don’t like to hug a lot. But that wasn’t so bad!” He threw his arms around his own shoulders and gave a squeeze to demonstrate. “That was OK!”

My sons, divested of their acolyte robes, come in, and I set them carrying boxes to Rose’s trunk. As my husband follows them in, Tom tells him happily, “Hey, that was OK!” He put his arms across his chest, hands on shoulders. “I’m not used to hugging so much. But once I got into it, I really didn’t mind.” He hugged himself again. “That was OK!”

It took an hour or so to take down the icons, blow out the candles, and pack everything back onto the shelves inside the altar. Though there were more helpers, the mood was relaxed and chatty, and no one was in a hurry to leave. At last the altar was shrouded under its gray blanket in the corner, and the old oak table once more commanded the center of the room.

As we stepped out the front door my two boys broke into a run, shouting, “I get the front seat!” Megan put her arm around me as we ambled along. I looked up at a black sky spattered with stars.

In a few weeks we’ll be standing here again, preparing to go in to begin the Easter service. My husband will pound on the door, as we all stand clustered behind him, trembling a little with the chill and anticipation. He will shout, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lifted up, O ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may enter!” Someone from inside will respond with the line, “Who is the King of Glory?” We’ll all know the answer to that.

A desert stretches between that night and this, but it is a desert that will disclose sudden, startling blooms. I wait to see them.

Lent has begun. Pascha is coming.