"Brethren, while fasting bodily, let us also fast spiritually;
let us loosen every bond of injustice; let us destroy the strong
fetters of violence; let us tear up every unjust writing; let us
give bread to the hungry and let us welcome the homeless poor to
our houses, that from Christ our God we may receive the great mercy."
(=Stichira, Wednesday of the First Week=)
We are approaching again the Great Lent--the time of repentance, the
time of our reconciliation with God. Repentance is the beginning and
also the condition of a truly Christian life. "Repent!" was the first
word of Christ when He began to preach (Matt. 4:17). But =what is
repentance=? In the daily rush of our life we have no time to think
about it, we simply take it for granted that we must go to confession,
receive absolution, and then forget all about it until next year. Yet
there must be a reason why our Church has set apart seven weeks as a
special time of repentance and calls each Orthodox Christian to a
special spiritual effort. And this reason must obviously concern
=me=, =my= life, =my= faith, =my= membership in the Church. I must try to
understand it, to follow as much as I can the teachings of my Church, be
Orthodox not only by name, but in life itself. What then is repentance?
Great Lent gives the answer to this question. It is indeed a =school
of repentance=, to which each Christian must go every year in order
to refresh the understanding of his faith. It is a wonderful pilgrimage
to the very sources of Orthodoxy, a rediscovery of a truly Orthodox way
of life. Let us try to make these forty days as meaningful, as deep, and
as rich, as possible.
In this brief explanation of Lent we shall deal with:
--the preparation for Great Lent,
--the Lenten worship of the Orthodox Church,
--the Orthodox teaching on fasting, prayer and other spiritual
efforts prescribed during Lent.