The essence of Great Lent, which lasts six weeks and which
leads us to Passion Week and to the Feast of Feasts, Pascha, can best be
characterized as “sweet sorrow.” During
this time period, which is sorrowful and at the same time exalted, the image of
man’s sinfulness, his estrangement from God, appears especially clearly before
him, and there sounds out a call to repentance, a call to what overcomes that
barrier that man had erected between himself and God.
The Russian term pokayanie is a translation of the Greek
concept of metanoia, which literally means “change of mind.” Great Lent
calls us not to a fruitless self-condemnation, something capable of leading one
to loss of faith in oneself or to pessimism and despondency. Rather, it calls
man to return to the necessary path, the path which leads him back to his
paternal home, to his true homeland.
Biblical revelation tells us quite clearly that man has a
dual nature. According to the
Russian poet Derzhavin, man “is at the same time king and slave,” and those
two states are in never-ending conflict with one another.
Dostoevsky expresses a similar idea: that Satan is doing battle with God,
and that the field of battle is the human soul.
According to Sacred Scripture, man is a temple, but it is a
fallen temple, in need of cleansing and restoration.
It bears the image of God, but that image has become clouded and in need
of renewal by means of fasting and prayer.
In calling for repentance and for renewal of the heart, the
Great Lent does not simply preach a call to repentance.
At the same time, its message contains that Good News without which the
very act of repentance would have no meaning.
It proclaims the Good News that man is a child of God, by which God has
forever united Himself with His creation.
Lent bears witness to man’s original nature, to his
eternal closeness to God, a closeness that had been disturbed and weakened by
sin, but that could not be destroyed.
At its very core, Great Lent is the Good News of the
approaching Pascha. Thus, its
sadness is merely the path toward the joy of the Resurrection.
In the opening days of Great Lent, the Great Canon is read.
The Canon was composed in the 8th century by Andrew, Bishop of the
May the holy days of Great Lent be for all of us as days
spent in a place of spiritual healing from which we might emerge better than we
had been. May the Lord, Ruler of
all, help us succeed.
Archpriest Victor Potapov, 2009