“Let us begin the season of the Fast by preparing ourselves for spiritual struggles. Let us cleanse the soul, let us cleanse the body. Let us abstain not only from food but also from every passion, delighting in the virtues of the Spirit, so that by perfecting ourselves in them with love we may all be counted worthy to behold, in spiritual joy, the most honourable Passion of Christ our God and His Holy Resurrection” (Sticheron at Lord, I have cried, Cheesefare Sunday).
Inspired by the words of this sticheron and directed towars the Feast of feasts, we align our steps with the rhythm of Great Lent. In the days and weeks before us, once again a favourable opportunity is given to detach ourselves from the vanity and deceptive glory of this world, to enter into ourselves, and to focus on the one thing needful (Lk. 10:38–42). “Let us fast a fast acceptable to the Lord and pleasing to Him!”—so declares one of the Church’s hymns at the beginning of the Holy and Great Forty Days. Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, from every impure thought, so that we may renew our relationship with God, with our neighbour, and with the whole of creation. The ultimate goal of this Lenten journey, the final station of this path, is our complete renewal and transformation—that is, precisely what the Holy Apostle Paul speaks of: “And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). The path of fasting is therefore the path of the transformation of the mind, which also leads to the fullness of experiential knowledge of God, which the Apostle elsewhere calls “…the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).
The first testimony to the power and significance of fasting was given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who fasted for forty days before the beginning of His ministry (Mt. 4:1–11). We possess no better means for our own purification than prayer and fasting, for: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Mt. 17:21). The Holy Forty Days are a time of spiritual spring, a time of spiritual renewal, fervent prayer, and spiritual struggle. “Now is the time of virtues; come, let us fast, let us bring tears, tenderness, and mercy, crying out: ‘We have sinned more than the sands of the sea, yet forgive us all, O Saviour, that we may receive the incorruptible crown’” (Idiomelon of Cheesefare Week).
This blessed period that now opens before us offers an opportunity to understand once again the truth of asceticism and its inseparable connection with the Eucharistic realization of the Church, whose every expression and dimension is illumined by the light and joy of the Resurrection. Asceticism is another word for Christian existence. Great Lent is the proper time to experience the Church as the place and the manner in which the gifts of divine grace are revealed—always as a foretaste of the joy of the Resurrection, which is the cornerstone of our faith and the all-radiant horizon of the “hope that is within us.” Great Lent offers us the opportunity to unite the exalted theory of Christianity with the practice of our own lives.
Great Lent is the school of the Christian life, the school of deep inner labour upon oneself. It is a lesson in self-restraint, a sacrifice that each person can offer to God as a kind of “tithe” within the year. The Holy Forty Days immerse us in a special atmosphere of spiritual life, calling us to the utmost concentration of attention and to a focus on eternal values. Lenten hymnography speaks of the “spring of the Fast,” while in the rich theological and patristic treasury we find that Great Lent is called “joyful sorrow,” “spiritual spring,” and also a “period of joy and light.”
Fasting is not an escape from the world, nor a selfish isolation from others, but an opportunity to share God’s love even more intensely than we ordinarily do. Let us pray to the Lord that during the days of Great Lent He may remove from us Pharisaic hypocrisy and every human passion, and that He may strengthen us in the struggle against the passions and fortify us in the battle against sin. O Lord, grant that we may strive with the good struggle and complete the course of the Fast preserving the faith, so that we may appear as victors over sin and be made worthy to venerate the glorious Resurrection of Christ.
At the beginning of Great Lent,
in the year of our Lord 2026.
