"By the Waters of Babylon: The Great Fast, Our Exile" by Fr. Seraphim Rose

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (source)

  

By the Waters of Babylon The Great Fast, Our Exile

by Fr.Seraphim Rose (+1982)

March 1965

This weekend, at the Sunday Vigil of the Prodigal Son, we will sing Psalm 135.1  
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion".  
In these words of the Lenten psalm, we Orthodox Christians, the New Israel, remember that we are in exile. For Orthodox Russians, banished from Holy Russia,2 the Psalm has a special meaning; but all Orthodox Christians, too, live in exile in this world, longing to return to our true home, Heaven.  
For us the Great Fast is a session of exile ordained for us by our Mother, the Church, to keep fresh in us the memory of Zion from which we have wandered so far. We have deserved our exile and we have great need of it because of our great sinfulness. Only through the chastisement of exile, which we remember in the fasting, prayer and repentance of this season,

Do we remain mindful of our Zion?  
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem..."
   

Mosaic from Ormylia Monastery: Adam and Eve eating from the tree in Paradise causing the fall, and  the Good Thief, through the Tree of the Cross, re-entering Paradise (source)

  
Weak and forgetful, even in the midst of the Great Fast we live as though Jerusalem did not exist for us. We fall in love with the world, our Babylon; we are seduced by the frivolous pastimes of this "strange land" and neglect the services and discipline of the Church whi(souch remind us of our true home. Worse yet, we love our very captors - for our sins hold us captive more surely than any human master - and in their service we pass in idleness the precious days of Lent when we should be preparing to meet the Rising Sun of the New Jerusalem, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  
There is still time; we must remember our true home and weep over the sins which have exiled us from it. Let us take to heart the words of St. John of the Ladder: "Exile is separation from everything in order to keep the mind inseparable from God. An exile loves and produces continual weeping."
  
Exiled from Paradise, we must become exiled from the world if we hope to return.  
This we may do by spending these days in fasting, prayer, separation from the world, attendance at the services of the Church, in tears of repentance, in preparation for the joyful Feast that is to end this time of exile; and by bearing witness to all in this "strange land" of our remembrance of that even greater Feast that shall be when our Lord returns to take His people to the New Jerusalem, from which there shall be no more exile, for it is eternal.
(source)

Icon depicting the Holy Prophet David and Psalm 135 "By the Waters of Babylon" (source)

   
For a fuller commentary on this most beautiful Psalm and fitting hymn for Triodion, see the following talk by Fr. Thomas Hopko.
   

A beautiful video compiled by Fr. Seraphim from Mull Monastery with a recording of the famous Byzantine Chant version of "By the Waters of Babylon" in English, coupled with beautiful footage of the waters and countryside (source)

   

"Theology will not suit mourners, for it is of a nature to dissolve their mourning. For the theologian is like one who sits in a teacher’s seat, whereas the mourner is like one who spends his days on a dung heap and in rags. That is why David, so I think, although he was a teacher and was wise, replied to those who questioned him when he was mourning: ‘How shall I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?‘ —that is to say, the land of passions."
-St. John of the Ladder
(source)

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (source)

  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!