Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

Today we find ourselves on the threshold of Great Lent. Tomorrow, or more correctly this evening, commences a special and deeply meaningful Church season. Frequent and long church services will begin. All of us will come to confession and communion more often. We’ll pray and read Holy Scripture and other spiritual literature more often. We will attempt to eat less, talk less, spend less time on the internet. We will also try to treat our neighbour better, to help those who are in need, to visit those who are lonely. In such a way, we hope that at least for a time, we will control our own will and find freedom, so as to joyfully and worthily meet the radiant resurrection of Christ.

Some may take issue with what I said above and comment that there is no freedom in Lent; instead, the Church binds me and chokes me with a plethora of rules during this season, ties up all of my free time, and, in general, wishes to make me its slave, giving me no opportunity to live a life that is pleasant for me. Truly a modern person could easily come to such a conclusion, because freedom is now often understood as the ability or right to live in all things according to one’s own free will.

The fact is that in truth, we are not free at the moment, but are enslaved to our passions. To exist, each person must eat, take rest, have some protection from the elements (have clothes to wear and a roof over one’s head), but sometimes these natural human needs develop into passions. For example, some people enjoy consuming large quantities of food or eating especially delicious food, etc. In such a way, a person binds himself to food, a comfortable bed, to fashionable clothing, or to the internet and can no longer act freely. Probably many of us would like to read the Gospel or pray more often, but it doesn’t happen because our time simply disappears on the internet. Lent is that time when we can battle these passions and, with God’s help, find at least a little more freedom.

Some time ago the Lord God, through the Prophet Moses, lead His chosen people out of Egyptian slavery to freedom and after forty years, settled them in the wonderful Promised Land. Throughout the forty years of wondering in the desert, the Jews continuously grumbled against the Lord and lamented that it would have been better to stay enslaved in Egypt rather than deal with the difficulties of freedom in the desert. Despite this complaining, the Lord did not abandon His people and always supported them. Today, let us follow our Moses, i. e. the Church, let’s leave behind our Egyptian slavery – our sins and passions, let’s enter into a 40-year journey through the desert, that is Great Lent, so as to cleanse ourselves and gain true freedom. Let us not grumble at God or at fasting, like the Jews did once upon a time, but instead let’s thank Him and rejoice that we are given this grace-filled season. In such a way, let’s worthily enter into the promised land, that is to meet our risen Lord.

priest Alexis