We’ve entered the great and profitable arena of fasting, of 
Great Lent in Questions and AnswersGreat Lent is a very special time, including in the Church calendar, but not all days of Great Lent are the same.
“>Great Lent, which has opened before us that we might spiritually labor and pass through this period of spiritual warfare with readiness and determination, to worship the holy Resurrection of our Lord, which means both our own liberation and resurrection from sin.
Holy Lent is considered a special and most blessed period in the Church for spiritual warfare. Of course, that doesn’t mean a Christian should wait for Lent to take up spiritual warfare. For us, every day should be both Lent and Sunday, every day should be Holy and Great FridayIt was the sight we now commemorate in the present Church service, and behold in the sacred Image before our eyes. The sight was the Son of God, Who came down from the heavens, became man for the salvation of the human race, and was mocked and scourged by men.
“>Holy Friday, Holy and Great SaturdayOf all the days the Holy and Great Forty Day Fast is the most distinguished, but more than the Holy Forty Day Fast the Holy and Great Passion Week is exalted, and more than the days of Holy Week Great and Holy Saturday is the most exalted. This week is called great not because these days or hours are more exalted but because the great, portentous and extraordinary deeds of our Savior were accomplished during this week, but especially on this day.”>Holy Saturday, and Pascha. But since we’re human and we experience various changes and fluctuations in our spiritual state and in our whole disposition, the Church, treating us with great and wisdom, gives us daily spiritual reminders through the commemoration of the saints, through the Great Feasts of the Lord and the Theotokos, through fasts, through Great Lent, to remind us that we have opportunity to spiritually labor during this blessed time. Great and Holy Lent is an especially blessed time, because the entire Church, all Orthodox Christians on this earth, all of us as one Body, fast in a manner pleasing to the Lord, and we strive to do everything necessary that constitutes life in Christ.
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2), we sing at Vespers on Forgiveness Sunday
“>Forgiveness Sunday. That is, now is the accepted time, pleasing to God—a time of repentance and salvation. Great and Holy Lent is filled with the special peace of repentance, which attracts the grace of the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men. Therefore, at Vespers on Forgiveness Sunday, the Church lays our forgiveness of each other as the foundation for the Fast. The Gospel passage read that day speaks about this. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you (Mt. 6:14), says Christ.
In order to wage spiritual warfare, we need the presence of Divine grace, for this is no human warfare. The spiritual feat of Great Lent isn’t a diet we keep to try to lose weight. Holy Lent has a different meaning—for grace to enter a man’s heart, to avoid sin, to overcome sin and the passions that kill his soul, to receive enlightenment from God and thereby acquire the Kingdom of God. Along with the physical struggle, along with keeping the Fast, we also need God’s presence and strength.
We receive forgiveness from each other that through forgiveness and repentance the Holy Spirit of God might enter our hearts, abide with us, open our eyes and lead us to an awareness of our sinfulness, so we might turn to God and entreat absolution for our sins. If all this warfare doesn’t lead us to seek forgiveness of sins, if it doesn’t lead us to a blessed state of repentance, then this warfare won’t bear any fruit. Only repentance nurtures and purifies the human soul.
Spiritual labor during Great Lent is centered precisely on repentance. Fasting, vigils, numerous services, prostrations, standing in prayer, readings—everything we do during this period aims to soften our hearts. We labor in this arena of fasting with great determination, without timidity. Those who are afraid will never achieve anything: An indecisive man has no part in the Kingdom of God. Those who are afraid, believing that their spiritual achievements depend on their own strength, forget about the power of God, forget the words of the Apostle Paul, who says: I can do all things through Christ Which strengtheneth me (Phil. 4:13). This is the disposition we must have to carry out the spiritual feat of Great Lent, “like lions breathing fire,” as St. John Chrysostom says. Like lions breathing flames and smoke, full of strength and intensity—we must labor spiritually with the same strength in the blessed period of Great Lent. We mustn’t be afraid, we mustn’t be timid, we mustn’t think that nothing will work out for us. God is with us and He won’t abandon us. Show God your intention and you’ll receive power from Him to accomplish the work of your salvation.
But the work of salvation isn’t limited just to fasting. If it doesn’t work for us to fast according to the regulations of the Church and, with the blessing of our spiritual father, we make concessions to our physical illness and weakness, this isn’t so terrible. Who can prevent us from humbling ourselves and repenting? We don’t need physical strength, we don’t have to be young, old, strong and mature to have a humble spirit, to not condemn, to not sin, for our hearts to be contrite and abide in the grace of humility. All of us, young and old, sick and healthy, can have this grace of repentance in our hearts, born of humility. This is our goal.
This is precisely what God wants from us. We can achieve this if we free ourselves from the bonds of passions, from sin. Fasting is the first step, leading us to that state of manliness and courage that breaks the bonds of sin, so we might be able to continue our spiritual warfare with great zeal and boldness. We have to cast aside malice, deceit, and everything that obscures the image of God, and above all, acquire holy humility. A humble man can repent, pray, receive health of body and soul, while the proud man can’t repent. A proud man can’t understand what state he’s in; he thinks he doesn’t need God or anyone else. He never feels guilty, that he needs to ask forgiveness from his brother. He thinks he’s always right. In reality, he’s in the darkness of the absence of God. God lives not in sinful but in humble and repentant hearts. God never lives in a proud man and never gives him grace. God resists the proud. He’s an adversary of pride and egotism. So, in this blessed time, let us resolve, along with the physical feat of fasting, to offer yet deeper repentance.
Let us try to attain this blessed and blissful state of repentance, acquired by weeping before God. God will come into our hearts to comfort and proclaim His love and our salvation.
In the Church, we don’t live by false utopias, dreams, and moralizing piety. In the Church, we get to know God. God is here among us, and man is called to experience God as the greatest experience of his life. All the saints, who felt the presence of God, are proof of this. Then we’ll truly be sons of God, sons of the Church, true Christians in whom the Gospel is incarnate and bears fruit, transfiguring our being, making it a temple of the Holy Spirit, a chosen vessel of God. May this grace of repentance ever accompany us, especially in this blessed time of Great and Holy Lent. As we receive forgiveness from each other, let us entreat God, through His grace and the power of the Honorable Cross, to bless us, cover us, strengthen us, so that like runners on a track, we might continue the spiritual warfare of the Holy Fast with joy, determination, and great courage and be accounted worthy of the sweetness of the presence of God in our hearts.
The Orthodox Church always puts the love of God first. Love means a personal relationship, a man’s personal connection with God. To achieve this love, we have the services, vigils, prayers, kneeling, noetic prayer, prayer on the prayer rope. The teaching and Gospel of Christ are the tools and means that lead us to Christ. The Church speaks about a Person, about Christ, not about ideals. When we understand that it’s this Person Who is the heart of the Church, the heart of love and our existence, then we’ll understand much about the Church. The Church celebrates the marriage between man and Christ. The hymns, readings, and the whole spirit of Great Lent and Holy Week strike at the heart of man, to destroy its callousness and insensitivity, that it might begin to search for the love of Christ.
Source: Orthodox Christianity
