Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

Today, on the day before the beginning of Lent, the Church offers us to remember, for our edification, how Adam, the first-created man, sinned and was, as a consequence, not only expelled from paradise, but also became mortal. This personal tragedy of the first people touched not only them, but all creation and all subsequent generations. The whole world changed, death and decay began to reign, all because of Adam's sin. It is not by chance that today we remember this spiritual catastrophe, which spoiled not only the spiritual life of man, but also his physical life. Adam's sin was not murder, nor robbery, nor infidelity, but something that many consider not particularly important – breaking the fast. God gave no commandments or instructions to Adam in paradise, save that he not taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This one commandment, that is a commandment to fast, was broken by Adam.

There is an idea or principle in our spiritual lives that certain spiritual illnesses or passions of the soul can be cured by opposite virtues, and that sins can be blotted out by performing an opposite good deed. If a person suffers from greed, he should be generous in giving alms; if he is lazy, he should forced himself to act, and so on. This principle applies to almost any sin.

Although we were not the first to sin, although it was not we who through our sin changed the fate of subsequent generations, although we did not change through our sin the nature of all creation, each of us nonetheless lives with the consequences of Adam's sin. We all suffer in this life and will eventually fall ill and die. And all this is because someone broke the fast. Therefore, if we want to live and avoid suffering, we should gladly give up everything that seems pleasant to us, i.e. we should fast. Through our abstinence, we are as if blotting out all the consequences of the fall of Adam and Eve. The person who learns to eat simply and moderately will suffer nothing at all if he is deprived of gourmet food. One who learns to live simply, without television, without the internet, without idle talk, will never consider it a hardship to be alone. One who destroys within himself the desire to enjoy everything pleasant in this world will not regret leaving it at the end of his life. Do you see how fasting can remedy everything that was spoiled by the breaking of the first commandment in Paradise?

Taking all of this into account, let us, as much as is possible, as much as our health, our age, our family situation allows, follow the holy prophets of God Moses and Elias, who were the first to show the power of a forty-day fast. Let us follow our Savior, who Himself fasted for forty days, and let us abstain from the good things of this world in the coming holy days of Great Lent.

priest Alexis