Kiev, March 15, 2024
Photo: news.church.ua
As every year, the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has blessed the faithful to take up a special Lenten prayer rule for spiritual growth and for peace.
In his Lenten address, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, blesses the faithful to “make seven prostrations with the Jesus Prayer every day—for the forgiveness of our sins, and to read one chapter of the Holy Gospel—for peace in our land and throughout the world.”
Dear brothers and sisters! Beloved children of the Church of Christ!
By the grace of God, the days of Great Lent are beginning—a special time that, following the image of the Gospel parable, returns us from the distant land of sin to the house of our Heavenly Father (Lk. 15:11-32).
Every year, the coming of the salvific days of Lent gives us the opportunity to cast aside the works of darkness (Rom. 13:12) and return to the path of life (Ps. 16:11). This is facilitated both by the calendrical period of the Holy Forty Days, coinciding with the season of spring’s awakening of nature, and by the special penitential atmosphere of the Lenten services.
Observing Great Lent is not only important but also an essential condition for the right path to salvation. Great Lent opens our spiritual eyes and gives us the opportunity to see our true selves before God, to analyze and correct ourselves in the light of the coming eternity. In instructing its children on the grace-filled time of fasting, the Holy Church reminds us that we are called to be enlightened by the spiritual power of the Lord, Who is light, and in Whom there is no darkness at all (1 Jn. 1:5). True spiritual life is not only the renunciation of evil and moral perfection, but also the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the transformation of the human soul by the Divine power of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is risen from the dead.
In the sacred days of the Holy Forty Days, let us intensify our fervent prayers for peace to the God of peace (1 Thess. 5:23). May the fruits of our fasting be the increase of love, the cessation of hostility and bloodshed, the eradication of hatred and all malice, so that, having worthily passed through the ordeal of spiritual struggle, we may become dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:11).
Every year during the Holy Forty Days, we have taken special prayer rules upon ourselves. This year, the faithful of our Holy Church are blessed to make seven prostrations with the Jesus Prayer every day—for the forgiveness of our sins, and to read one chapter of the Holy Gospel—for peace in our land and throughout the world.
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