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For the uninitiated, Great Lent is sheer torment. Meat, milk, fish, eggs are taboo. Cakes and pastries are also prohibited. And it’s a sin to even think about sex. However, if you ask any Christian about his attitude to Lent, he will answer without hesitation that he is waiting for him with great joy, which no one can replace. Let’s try to solve this puzzle.
Beginning and end of Lent in 2023
Great Lent preceding the feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ – Easter – in 2023 lasts from February 27 to April 15.
The history and essence of Lent
There is an opinion that Great Lent was established in memory of the Lenten feat of Christ, who, after His Baptism, was in the wilderness for 40 days without water and food.
However, there is another version. At the dawn of Christianity, before Baptism, the future children of the Church were ordered to pray intensely and fast. Baptisms were held several times a year, and even then – on major holidays, one of which was Easter. Those wishing to be baptized were called catechumens. So, in solidarity with them, baptized Christians also observed fasting and prayed earnestly for the salvation of the whole world. Fasting was not established at once, the practice and experience of fasting was acquired over many years. And now the modern charter obliges the children of the Church to fast for 47 days.
How Great Lent Goes: Three Stages
Great Lent is preceded by Cheese Week or Maslenitsa. During this week, believers give up meat, which helps them gradually enter a fasting diet.
Lent itself consists of two periods – Holy Forty Day and then Holy Week.
Holy Forty Day – the days when we go towards God. Through restriction in food, prayer and repentance for sins, we gradually bring ourselves closer to meeting with the Risen Christ.
Holy Week is the days when Christ Himself comes to us through the last sermons, the Last Supper, Calvary and Resurrection. So, together with God, we celebrate the most important Christian holiday – Easter.
Meals in Lent
The strictest weeks of Lent are the first and Holy Week. Diligent Christians these days sometimes do not even eat anything more satisfying than a piece of bread and water. But this feat is not for everyone. Food during Lent must be approached wisely. In no case should you listen to other people’s advice and wool the Internet. Rely on your own strength, health, and the blessing of the priest to whom you confess. He, like no one else, knows and feels your spiritual state.
Fasting is not a diet. You can’t live without meat, eat meat. You can’t live without milk – drink milk. The purpose of Great Lent is not a ban on cottage cheese or sausage, but repentance.
With regard to marital intimacy, here the responsibility lies with the spouses themselves. If both fast, then, as a rule, they limit themselves in sex. If only one of the spouses fasts, and the other does not even think about fasting and requires the fasting person to fulfill his marital duty, then this very duty must be fulfilled. The apostle Paul said about this: “But, in order to avoid fornication, each one should have his own wife, and each one should have her own husband” (1 Cor 7:1-7). In addition, the purpose of the Fast is not to destroy peace in the family, but to strengthen it.
How to observe Great Lent
Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky, rector of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, simply and succinctly spoke about the spiritual component of the fast on his Facebook page. M.V. Lomonosov. You can’t say better than him.
1. Learning to pray. Let’s add something else to what we have.
If we don’t pray at all at home, then we do, at least a short, but regular prayer.
If we make the morning and evening rule, then we begin daily either to read the Psalter, or a chapter from the Gospel.
If we go to church only on Sunday, then we add at least one more day to weekdays.
2. We learn to deal with sins. I propose to choose the smallest of all recurring sins and try to defeat it. Well, for example, the skill to express your dissatisfaction with everything you see or hear. Or discuss third parties with a close friend (girlfriend). Or use swear words in a conversation.
Or keep an old grudge against a relative (boss, teacher, neighbor, etc.). How to win it? Pray for him daily.
3. Learning to repent. We choose the most secret sins from the list – those that are hidden from the eyes of others and for which we are especially ashamed. We go to confession and ask the priest how to deal with them. The priest is an experienced person, he will surely advise what is needed.
4. Learning to do good deeds. “For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you accepted Me; was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me” (Matthew 25:35-36).
Every day in the evening we test our conscience: what good deed have I done today? Who did you console, whom did you help, who did you spend time on, etc.? If this was not the case, then realize that the day was spent in vain.
5. Learning to rejoice. The beauty of God’s world. God’s gifts and talents that people are endowed with. Shows of love, compassion, mercy. Finding meanings, logic, harmony, truth. In short, everything that brings us closer to God.