A Forty Day Journey Through The Ancient Great Canon

Join Frederica Mathewes-Green on a guided retreat - ideal for the Lenten Season - through the classic Great Canon, a wise, ancient, Orthodox text that will enrich your experience of spirituality and prayer.

First Fruits of Prayer will bring readers of all denominational backgrounds into the prayer experience of first millennium Christianity through immersion in this fascinating text, a poetic hymn written in the eighth century (about AD 720). This extraordinarily beautiful work, still chanted by Eastern Christians every Lent, weaves together Old and New Testament Scriptures with prayers of hope and repentance. It offers ancient ways of seeing Christ that will nevertheless feel new to most readers today.

This insightful book offers readers an opportunity to walk through a classic text from the Christian East in a series of forty prayerful readings with accompanying commentary and questions for further reflection.

In this hymn, St. Andrew goes through the Old Testament in close detail, and the New Testament more briskly, casting light on his own soul. He examines the people and events of the Bible and asks himself "How am I like this?" and "Do I do this?" It combines a fierce commitment to raw honesty with abounding gratitude for God's unmerited love. It's a work that offers no false consolation, but which goes to the heart, and treats sin as a self-inflicted wound that the Only Lover of Mankind came to heal.

Frederica has divided the Great Canon into 40 readings, and for each day she supplies the Scriptures cited (hundreds of them; St. Andrew had an amazing knowledge of Scripture) and a brief meditation. It's an ideal companion for Lenten reflection.

About the Author:
Frederica Mathewes-Green is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and a commentator for National Public Radio. She has been interviewed in The New York Times, Chicago Tribute, Newsweek, and Time, among other publications, and is the author of several books, including 'At the Corner of East and Now' (Tarcher) and 'The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer' (Paraclete). Mathewes-Green lives in Maryland.

Colour cover, 128 pages, 177 x 120mm, Hardcover