Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!
We have entered a special and sacred time—the stillness of the First Week of Great Lent. Only yesterday our ears were filled with the noise of the world, the bustle of affairs, and endless conversations. But today, here beneath the vaults of the church, that noise subsides, yielding to another sound—the measured, penitential blows of the Great Canon of our venerable father Andrew of Crete. And the first words we hear strike us sharply; they seem unjust, almost impossible:
“I have surpassed Cain’s murder by deliberate choice… I have become the murderer of my soul.”
Let us pause for a moment. Each of us standing here has not shed another’s blood; we have not raised our hand against a brother; we have committed no obvious crime. Why, then, does the great saint compel us to acknowledge ourselves as worse than the first murderer in the history of mankind? Is this merely poetic exaggeration?
No, beloved, it is not exaggeration. It is spiritual realism.
Cain committed a terrible sin, but his rage was directed outward. He killed the mortal body of his brother—a body already subject to death. But we commit something more subtle and more irreparable: We carry out a “bloodless murder” of our own immortal soul.
Venerable Andrew reveals to us the dreadful secret of our inner condition. He speaks of the “reviving of the sinful flesh.” What does this mean in the language of the spirit? God created man as a beautiful and harmonious hierarchy; the spirit was meant to rule over the soul, and the soul to govern the body. But sin inverted this pyramid.
When we “revive the flesh,” it does not simply mean that we care for our health. It means that we feed our “inner beast”: we indulge our cravings, cultivate selfishness, and spend all our strength serving comfort, anger, or pride. And at that very moment our soul begins to suffocate. This is not an instant stab of a dagger; it is a slow, daily asphyxiation.
Every time we choose a sweet lie instead of bitter truth; every time we pass by another’s misfortune because it is “inconvenient” for us; every time we cherish an old grievance for years, allowing it to scorch our heart — we inflict a wound upon our eternity. We have taken up arms against ourselves! And the most bitter thing, as the Canon says, is that this happens “by deliberate choice.” We knew that anger is destructive, we knew that envy is poisonous, yet we still preferred the temporary “revival” of our passions to the life of our spirit.
But why does the Church place these stern truths before us precisely now? Not in order to cast us into barren despair. As long as we consider ourselves “perfectly decent people,” there is no room for God in our hearts. Christ has nothing to do in a self-satisfied heart. But when, gazing into the mirror of the Canon, we realize that we have wounded and nearly slain our own soul with our own hands—then a true cry for help is born within us. To acknowledge ourselves as “worse than Cain” is not self-flagellation. It is that very moment when the prodigal son, sitting at the swine’s trough, finally “comes to himself” and says, “I will arise and go to my Father.”
Great Lent is the time of our common “re-arming.” Let us ask ourselves today: What deeds have become my weapons? Against whom am I truly waging war when I indulge in pride or condemnation? Let us lay down these weapons of evil deeds. Let us cease feeding that “flesh” which kills our spirit. Instead, let us take up the weapons of light: sobriety of mind, watchfulness and discernment of heart, sincere mercy.
The Lord, Who is “the Resurrection and the Life,” stands here among us. He alone can raise the dead, and He awaits our sincere desire for healing. And if He sees even the smallest movement of our will, He will touch our wounded souls with His grace and will say to each of us, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” Let us go, then, into that “house” — into purity of heart and peace with God. For only there is the true life which no murder can ever touch.
