HOLY LENT, A SEASON OF SPIRITUAL SPRING AND RENEWAL

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

HOLY LENT, A SEASON OF SPIRITUAL
SPRING AND RENEWAL.

As Orthodox Christians continue their spiritual journey through Holy and Great Lent, a 40-day, proactive journey of repentance, fasting, and prayer it is understood by them that the Holy Church designed this unique period to purify the heart and realign our soul with the Almighty God, serving as a direct preparation for the All-Holy Pascha (Resurrection). It is understood as an “ASCESIS” (spiritual exercise) that facilitates salvation by breaking the power of passions and fostering union with God.

The path leading to our Lord Jesus Christ is not an easy one for it requires sacrifice, toil, faith, patience, obedience, repentance, humility and the willingness to surrender to God’s will. The way is strewn with all kinds of obstacles, trials and challenges. In order to overcome all obstacles the believer needs to be willing to submit to Christ entirely, in other words to surrender to Him body and soul. It cannot be done half way or as an afterthought. The All-knowing God knows how sincere and committed a person is and if he or she truly wishes to follow and obey Him.

We have now reached the Sunday of the Cross. On this day the divine service of Orthros (Matins) concludes with the solemn Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. The Veneration of the Holy Cross in Lent prepares us for the commemoration of the Crucifixion which is soon to follow in Holy and Great Week, and at the same time it reminds us that the entire Lent is a period when we are crucified with our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, The Crucifixion and Resurrection are interconnected with each other. The Synaxarion at Orthros states, “Through the Forty-Day Fast, we too are in a way crucified, dying to the passions.” For the non-believers the cross does not make any sense. Who among the people would choose humiliation, pain, suffering and death as the way to salvation? And yet our Lord Himself calls to all who wish to follow Him to “let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). The cost of discipleship is self-denial, carrying one’s cross ( a symbol of suffering), and obedience to Christ. Our Lord Christ instructs His followers to separate themselves from their sins and from the inclination of their hearts towards evil (Genesis 8:21), crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). Furthermore, our Lord is very clear when He says, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE” (Luke 14:27).

Every Christian must take his/her salvation seriously and not flippantly. Being a Christian is much more than attending church services once in a while, fasting from time to time and “giving up chocolate,” being selective of the Christian teachings and what we are willing to adhere to. Christianity is not a “religion of convenience,” but a life-long commitment to follow our Lord Jesus Christ with a total and unconditional agape. Our understanding is that we are the servants and His is the Lord. We are the ones who serve Him and not the other way around. At the end of the Orthodox baptism the candidate is shorn or tonsured in a crosswise manner symbolizing the willingness of the newly baptized Christian to offer his/her personal strength to God just as in the Old Testament story of Samson. Father Schmemann states that the cutting of the hair “is a sign that the life which now begins is a life of offering and sacrifice.” The life of the Christian is to conform to Christ’s life, a life of the Cross and Resurrection.

Saint Basil the Great writes, “True fasting consists of rejecting evil, holding one’s tongue, suppressing hatred, and banishing lust, as well as avoiding evil words, lying, and betrayal of vows.” Holy and Great Lent is indeed a time of renewal for through repentance, prayer and abstaining not only from food but from evil thoughts, words, and deeds. We are cleansed from all wicked infirmities and we begin once again a life of blessedness close to our Creator and Savior. A follower of Christ works for loving relationships toward all but his commitment to the All-Merciful and Loving God carries absolute priority even over family ties. Jesus gives several examples of what it means to carry one’s cross, the cost of discipleship. To be a true disciple of Christ means to count the cost, and pay it.

Prophet Joel advises us; “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13).
Lent is a time to rediscover God in our lives. It is a gift and an opportunity to redirect our lives toward God and manifest His Great Mercy more perfectly and profoundly. “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them” (Colossians 3:5-7). As we died with Christ, so we must experience death daily by “killing” old sinful and disintegrating passions. As we were raised with Christ, so we must experience life daily by the virtuous and unifying desires of the “new man” which we all are in the body of Christ” (Colossians 3:10-14).

“The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring unto ages of ages; the judgment of the Lord are true, altogether justified” (Psalm 19).

“Once our heart is purified of the passions, we are able personally to communicate with God. Within the larger experience of what we have called the “teaching” of God, there are different steps and stages. Previously we had the silence of creation. Now we have the voice of God. Creation keeps silent, for now we have the Lord speaking, teaching, and revealing. His saving commandments, first there was silence, now there is the speech, communication.

“The fear of the Lord is pure.” In using the word “fear,” the psalmist does not mean what we normally understand by this word. Here, “fear” is another word for the teaching of the Lord, for His statues and commandments. When you keep the commandments of the Lord, you will begin to have an authentic, substantive relationship with God. And your stance toward God, your approach to an contact with Him, will initially take the form of “fear,” because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). God’s law calls forth fear and respect, and this is what initially binds us to Him. Moreover, the psalmist says that this fear is “pure,” which means that it is untainted, holy, and therefore makes us holy because it binds us to God. When the “fear of the Lord” enters our heart we begin directly to communicate with God, to experience UNION WITH HIM.”

Spiritually, my friends, the yearly observance of Holy and Great Lent is only a prelude of what is to come. There is so much more to our Orthodox Christian Faith than observing them and celebrating these solemn and holy days each year. We haven’t even begun to understand the depth and height of our Holy Tradition. We must never be satisfied with the usual few elementary lessons and basic information which we have been given by our parents over the years but look deeper and discover how vast our Orthodox Christian faith is. [Resources:  Psalms and the Life of Faith and New Testament]

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is
good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1-2).

[Please note: To be “REASONABLE” or “SPIRITUAL” is to live according

________
“Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!”
+ Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George