This is the pleasant life. We often understand
fasting, especially the late fasting period,
40 days or something connected with hardship,
difficulties, and very often this is true. There
is usually not only deprivation from foods, temptations
there is also and this is often is because the
time of the fast is also a time for us for repentance
but this is not a time for sadness this is the
time when the church calls us to greet and the
Lord himself indeed in the gospel calls us to
greet fasting with joy to anoint one's head with
oil. And really, to make this time, the Lord
makes this time, the time for promise and hope,
the time for our spiritual renewal. And indeed,
in those first few days of the fast, which are
maybe difficult because it's difficult to change
one's routine to change one's you know habits
and the church offers us the in her wisdom the
divine services of such incredible beauty we
nowhere throughout the year we have the service
like such as this the service of great compliment
where we offer to god the words of the Psalms,
the words of the hymns, the words of the Holy
Fathers. And in particular, our souls are so
richly nourished with the words of the great
canon, great penitential canon of St. Andrew
of Crete. And the Church offers this beautiful
work of liturgical, theological poetry to us.
Because in this canon, in this hymnographic composition,
of the great hymnographer, great father of the
church, St. Andrew of Crete from the 7th century,
offers to us the images from the Holy Scriptures.
He recalls to our mind everything from the Holy
Scriptures. And it tells us, the traparia of
the canon, the words of the canon tells us that
All of these images of the scriptures is not
just a collection of stories, collection from
a book which we can put on a shelf and read sometimes
and maybe forget about. But it's the words about
ourselves that the scriptures speak, not just
about what happened to the different persons
that were there. Moses, when we called Moses.
Hophni Phinehas and Absalom, all of these figures.
But all of this is the cause for us to take a
hard look at ourselves and our souls. Because
we say, when we read those words, we say that
it is my soul, my heart, my mind that has preferred
the flesh pots of Egypt over the promised land.
It is as one word of the one of the Traparia,
I don't think it was today, but it says that
I have made myself into an idol to myself. And
when we look, when we think about it, it is all
true. All of these words are true. That is the
root of all, I mean, and it's the state of fallen
humanity. And fathers of the church would say
that the root of all sins, not just sins, but
the sinful state of mankind is the love of self,
is a self -love, and that's the cause of it.
But we are the great canon. You notice perhaps
that when we got to the end of the canon today,
the Traparia now started speaking about Christ.
They spoke about John the Baptist and then spoke
about Christ. And so because all of these images,
all of these figures, all of these persons that
are mentioned, righteous and unrighteous, holy
and unholy, all of this was to tell us, to give
us promise and hope of fulfillment, of renewal,
of sanctification. transformation of our soul.
And this transformation of our soul is in Christ.
He is with Christ being formed in us. As St.
Paul says, our inward man is perishing, our outward
man is perishing, sorry, but our inward man is
being renewed. And this renewal is given to us
in Christ. And so that is why we're given those
words, we're given those texts to listen to,
to pay attention, to really apply to ourselves.
And when we read scriptures, we read the scriptures
also as speaking to us, speaking about ourselves,
about our soul, about our own path in Christ,
our path toward... are being glorified by Christ
and only in Him. They're telling us the truth
that we, how much accomplished we may be in ourselves
or not accomplished. The point is that the truth
about our being, truth of our existence, the
meaning of our existence is in Christ crucified
and risen from the dead. And this, we just started
on this 40 -something, 40 -plus day journey toward
Christ's cross and resurrection. And so this
journey from our being cast out of paradise last
Sunday to looking at the new tree of life, the
new tree of life where the fruit of life, Christ
himself, be blossomed forth, that is. or looking
at his cross and greeting Christ risen from the
dead with joy, with true joy, not just because
we can eat things again, but because this is
a promise of our destiny, promise of our own
resurrection, our own being in the kingdom. the
promise of paradise that is being with God. So
may this fast be to all of us the time for our
renewal in Christ, our time of remembrance of
our salvation, and the time for the renewal,
the rejuvenation of our souls. May you all have,
you and all of us, very blessed, fast, nourishing,
acceptable, and spiritually fulfilling. And so
that together we may walk as the Church on this
path toward the cross, tomb, and resurrection
of Christ. May the Lord bless you and keep you
in His love.