Two weeks of Great Lent have passed, during which the Orthodox Church has called us to correction and repentance.
Like a tender and loving mother, she has invited us to pass through Great Lent under her guidance. She has offered, and still offers, us rules for life: instructing some, gently reproving others, supporting and strengthening still others upon the true path.
Yet many among us have not heard her counsel, or have paid no attention to these calls. For many of us, time rushes forward like a violent whirlwind, carrying us along with it like lifeless objects deprived of their own strength. And we, borne farther and farther along, find ourselves in the strange condition of people “having eyes yet not seeing, having ears yet not hearing.”
The thunder of God’s wrath resounds above us, yet beneath its blows we fall into ever greater madness. People have become like idols, insensitive to the signs of the times, uncorrected by the teachings of the Church, deaf to the voice of reason, cold to the pleas of the heart and the rebukes of conscience.
Time continues its relentless course, and we merely count the number of days and the terrible calamities that befall us, without reflecting on their inner meaning. Yet these dreadful days contain within them a severe warning and instruction. We must see the cause of the misfortunes that occur in ourselves. An individual destroys himself through sin, and an entire people likewise destroys itself through sin. The multiplication of sins multiplies diseases and the kinds of illnesses that shorten our lives.
The visible and obvious sin of our time is self-love, which despises the law of God, the law of the state, and the law of nature. A person does not wish to restrain his desires and does not consider it necessary to practice self-restraint. Who does not know that multitudes perish from gluttony and drunkenness? The beginning of these two sins lies in the fact that people despise the requirements of the Church, which command abstinence and sobriety. If a person violates these requirements, he will also violate those that society places before him.
During the days appointed for fasting, people live shamefully, not distinguishing the fast from other days. When people feel no shame in breaking the fast before society, they go still further—they overindulge and become drunk. Thus they violate a third law—the law of nature. The punishment for violating these laws is not long in coming; we see countless misfortunes arising from lack of restraint. Likewise, spiritual vices clearly lead to innumerable calamities.
The Church, like a tender mother, teaches humility; the state teaches self-respect; and nature teaches the preservation of human dignity. Yet again we freely violate these laws, and after the violation, as a body follows its shadow, sorrow and misfortune follow. What is the cause of all our internal and external difficulties? It is our unwillingness to fulfill the law of God. What is the cause of our reckless undertakings and the unhappy failures of our endeavors? It is that we take up what is not ours to do, proudly attempting to steer a ship through the stormy depths of the ocean when we are not yet experienced even in navigating a small boat on a river. What is the cause of our lack of character and will? It is that we live too arbitrarily and self-willed, setting for ourselves neither measure nor purpose.
Thus we live long, yet life passes without the joy and delight that God intended for man upon the earth. A person does not go to church and does not know the joy given by the word of God and the divine services. A person lives selfishly within his family, loving only himself; therefore he does not understand the joy of family life and does not feel within himself the virtues of generosity, devotion, and love. Accustomed to living for himself and within himself, he does not understand the sorrow of the people, does not comprehend the grief of the nation, and becomes like an idol that, wherever it is placed, remains mute and without feeling.
But the Church again calls unceasingly to repentance. The Savior calls us to faith. Let us believe, and we shall be healed; and then He will say to us, as He said to the paralytic healed in today’s Gospel: Son, thy sins be forgiven thee… thy faith hath saved thee (Mark 2:5). Amen.
—Archpriest Valentin Amfiteatrov, Great Lent
On the observance of the fast
For Adam, the fast given by the Lord was a test of faithfulness. For us today, fasting is likewise, first of all, a test of our fidelity. When Adam and Eve doubted the words of the Lord and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, they were expelled from Paradise. In the same way, according to the 69th Canon of the Holy Apostles, those who do not trust the fasts established by the Church and arbitrarily violate them are separated from church communion. As the saying goes: to the willful—freedom; to the save —Paradise.
When we say of ourselves that we are Orthodox, we thereby define our belonging to the Orthodox Church; but we manifest our belonging to the Orthodox Church by fulfilling her ordinances; for example, by observing the fasts.
—Priest Sergei Nikolaev, The Joyful Time of the Fast
The sensual man resists nothing so strongly as the holy fast. To attend the divine services, to approach confession—even sensual people may agree to these things; but to take upon oneself the yoke of fasting seems to many Christians too heavy and even dangerous.
How then do you think to be a true Christian without fasting, if you do not fulfill the commands of Mother Church? One who does not fast arbitrarily separates himself from the whole assembly of the fasting Orthodox children of the Church. Do you pity your weak constitution? Then truly have mercy on it and give rest to your belly.
Fasting is a forcing of nature, a rejection of whatever pleases the taste, an extinguishing of bodily lust, the cutting off of evil thoughts, deliverance from impure dreams, purity of prayer, a light of the soul, a guarding of the mind, the destruction of hardness of heart, the door of compunction, humble sighing, joyful contrition, the restraint of talkativeness, the cause of silence, the guardian of obedience, the lightening of sleep, the health of the body, the source of dispassion, the remission of sins, the gate of Paradise, and heavenly delight.
—St. John of the Ladder (Climacus)
Fasting in the Family
Spouses should strictly observe the customs and ordinances of the Church concerning the preservation of purity on feast days, Sundays, and fasting days (Wednesdays and Fridays), remembering the words of St. Seraphim and Elder Ambrose that neglect of these Church prescriptions leads to illness in the wife and children. It should also be remembered that the church day begins in the evening, from six o’clock; therefore one should preserve oneself already on the eve of a feast or fasting day, considering their conclusion to be the evening before the following day.
There are known cases in Christian families where peace has been disturbed and one spouse has been driven to despair because of the other’s refusal of marital relations, caused by an improper zeal for abstinence. This also applies to periods of long fasts. Here, according to the instruction of the Apostle Paul, abstinence should be practiced only with the mutual consent of both spouses; it cannot take place if one of them is burdened by it and loses inner peace because of the abstinence.
But what should be done if one spouse refuses to take into account the fasting day or feast day? Here we encounter one of the dangers that marriage may conceal when people hold different views and worldviews. In such situations, spiritual drama and deep sorrow are inevitable. According to the commandment of the Apostle, one may not refuse one’s spouse; yet in doing so the sanctity of the feast or fasting day will be violated.
Thus we come to the conclusion of how important a careful choice of a spouse is, for it largely determines happiness in marriage. Marriage, which in its essence is a voluntary submission, is easy and happy only when the soul entrusts itself to a pious and virtuous spouse; and misfortune cannot be avoided if one’s spouse is under the power of passions and sin. It is not without reason that the Apostle Paul expresses sorrow for those who enter into marriage:
Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you (1 Cor. 7:28)
From: Readings For Every Day of Great Lent, Ed. N. Shaposhnikova (Moscow: Danilov Monastery, 2025).
