The greatness and mysticism of Lent
The Great Lent is an icon of our small life. "Let us lay aside all earthly cares…," we hear during the service.
If only we could truly learn to follow this prayer, our souls would be transformed. We mistakenly call our selfish attachment to others love. But behind this "love" lurks the fear of loneliness, the dread of being abandoned, a sense of ownership, and our pathological dependence on one another.
Wise elders teach that a person has two paths to salvation: either to struggle with all their might against their inner evil or to surrender entirely to Christ, entrusting Him alone with our entire life.
The first path requires a great reserve of spiritual strength, while the second requires only one thing – a loving heart. Both paths are not easy. The struggle against evil demands total self-sacrifice, while the striving towards God requires constant prayer. When the mind becomes pure from all thoughts, God Himself enters our soul without any effort on our part. There is no need for special prayer techniques or particular spiritual guidance. All that is required of us is deep repentance and humility. Everything else will be accomplished by the Lord.
When a person renounces all attachment to things and attraction to the world, they effortlessly find the path to purity of heart and, through it, discover within themselves the spirit in which God dwells. Grace, like a caring mother, leads the soul to salvation through the humble love of Christ. It enters our soul, fills the heart with divine strength, and quietens the mind.
The soul turns away from sin, approaches holiness, and the person unites with Christ through an enlightened spirit, penetrating the hidden chambers of the Heavenly Kingdom.
But this is not achieved easily, nor without great effort.
No one has ever entered the Kingdom of God as part of a group, in a crowd. The only way there is through a personal, hard-earned choice and the cross cultivated in one's own heart. Only when we crucify ourselves upon it and, left alone with ourselves, begin to cry out: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?", will He grant us the opportunity to hear: "Truly I say unto you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."
The wise and experienced in spiritual life teach: cease your fussing, enter your heart, and find Christ there. Dwell in the peace of the spirit, and you will receive grace. But if you allow your thoughts to govern you, they will inevitably lead you to hell. If you seek Christ outside yourself, you will find nothing but mental restlessness. Salvation is precisely the discovery of Christ at the very core of one's heart. Once we find Him within, we begin to directly and clearly understand what sin and virtue truly are. But if we seek Christ somewhere far away, high above us, instead of being saved, we will drown in meaningless busyness, calling it service to God and people.
The saddest sight is a monk who has lost his inner silence, throwing himself entirely into the commotion of the mind and various "soul-saving" activities, entangling his soul in his own thoughts and leading others astray. Orthodoxy is so simple that intellectuals can never fully grasp it. It is so wise that the foolish cannot comprehend it, no matter how many theological books they read.
All that the Church can give the world is the Liturgy, prayer, and contemplation.
The root of preserving Orthodoxy is the Holy Eucharist; the root of attaining salvation is unceasing prayer; the root of achieving deification is reverent contemplation. The one who has given Christ every beat of their heart and all the strength of their soul is filled with inexhaustible love. All we need is to achieve unity with Christ because, without Him, there is only death and darkness. Salvation is not in Menaia or the Typikon but in the daily purification of the heart, as the Holy Fathers did, to whom our Menaia are dedicated and whose teachings form the foundation of the Typikon. The calm, joyful experience of communion with God by the righteous has grown from the genuine, clear experience of prayer and contemplation.
Satan has always sought to poison the life of the Church and its servants with the toxic, anti-graceful energy of servitude to the spirit of the world. But within the Church, there has always been the salt of the saints, preventing this poison from corrupting the Body of Christ. These righteous ones were persecuted, reviled, and driven out, yet it is thanks to them that the gates leading to salvation remain open to each of us.
The grace we receive in the Church is passed on like a burning candle from hand to hand, like the fire of the spirit from one heart to another. Theologians attempt to pass on the tradition of Orthodoxy as one person hands another a dry branch that has been stored for years. That person, in turn, passes it on to a third, and so on. But from these dry branches, one can never create a beautiful garden. To grow a garden, the gardener must pass on to another gardener a healthy and living sapling. Only then is true gardening possible.
Citing the sayings of the Holy Fathers is the tradition of the dead letter. God does not dwell in academic offices but in the pure hearts of those who practise prayer and repentance. Just as one cannot quench thirst from a painted spring, so one cannot feed a hungry soul with mere quotations from the Holy Fathers. The arrogance and omniscience of some who speak of Christ, knowing answers to all spiritual questions, assure us that, if they had met Christ in their lives, they would surely have crucified Him to prevent Him from interfering with their existence in the dead world of thoughts and dreams, basking in the lifeless sea of religious self-deception.
Christ came to earth not to give us knowledge about Himself, the world and mankind but to give us Himself.
God came into the world to grant sinners the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven, which "is within us". But if the visible world enslaves us, we will lose the opportunity to acquire the invisible world, and Christianity will forever lose its essence and meaning for us. Love for Christ is cultivated through repentant prayer. The foundation of such prayer is constant self-awareness and vigilance of the mind. Without unity with Christ through prayer and repentance, no one has ever been able to overcome sin and death.
Adam fell from paradise into the world of vanity. This vanity creates tension in our minds and hearts. It is precisely what prevents us from attaining the peace of God. The experience of hundreds of generations of Christian ascetics shows that saving grace is achieved through prayer and strengthened through contemplation. Prayer is the anchor for the mind, which drifts upon the surface of life. But vanity and negligence are the most dangerous chronic diseases of the spiritual heart. Life is difficult and complex. Time, carrying our souls towards eternity with its rapid current, often dashes us against the boulders of sorrow and life’s tragedies. But this river ultimately flows into a still, clear lake, upon whose pure surface is reflected the Sun of Righteousness.
In recent years, the world around us has changed dramatically. The same happens to a person. Old age sometimes comes so suddenly that once-cherished features begin to lose their former appeal. But this is not about my age or the perspective of someone past fifty. No, I clearly see that the world itself is changing. It resembles a sponge that has been immersed in dirty water. Gradually, the filth seeps into every pore, saturating it completely.
I have something to compare it to. Never in previous decades of my life have I seen such an abundance of lies, treachery, deceit, human hatred, and political hypocrisy. I sense that evil has ensnared everything around us. But I thank God even for this. Now, more than ever, I can feel with every cell of my soul that the world we live in is not ours. This is not my home and not my neighbours. People, each good in their own way, have become isolated. Kindness, sincerity, goodwill, unity, and openness of heart have disappeared. The world is turning into a gas chamber of universal hatred.
Well then, if this is so, what is there to cling to in this world? Wherever you look, everything belongs to yesterday. Only one request remains to God – to live and die in Him alone. Nothing else is needed...
The Great Lent is also a call to courage in our earthly pilgrimage. The Great Lent is like a small life. It contains all that a person experiences throughout life – joy, sorrow, pain, and delight. It encompasses everything we encounter in our life.
The end of the Lent is like the end of our life – first the cross, and then, God willing, the resurrection.
