{"id":21077,"date":"2019-03-29T10:41:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/?p=21077"},"modified":"2019-04-05T14:07:36","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T14:07:36","slug":"the-most-suitable-time-for-changing-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/the-most-suitable-time-for-changing-ourselves","title":{"rendered":"The Most Suitable Time for Changing Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Father Alexander Volokhov is the rector of the Nikitskaya church of the Domodedovsky deanery. We\u2019ve asked Fr Alexander to share his thoughts on how Great Lent should be observed.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Father Alexander, we are in\u00a0Great Lent now. What are the most important things we should remember during this period?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Lent is a sacred time;\u00a0\u00a0atime\u00a0to reflect upon\u00a0our\u00a0\u2018usual\u2019 routine of life. We must say \u2018enough\u2019 to\u00a0how we have been living up till now and start focusing and living for all that is spiritual, not\u00a0seeking or expecting any reward from\u00a0this. If I could, I would run off into the forest for the whole period of Great Lent with my Psalter and a hunk of bread to \u2018escape\u2019 my usual life routine but this is not spiritually edifying or helpful. I have\u00a0responsibilities towards my parish, wife, children and my health. Sitting in seclusion in the forest would not necessarily teach me\u00a0to pray\u00a0so my Lenten desire is one\u00a0of renewed ascetical and solitary\u00a0focus.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

What needs to be done to make spiritual growth happen so that the fasting isn\u2019t confined solely to the abstinence from a certain type of food?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 During Great Lent, I always recollect a story about prelate Mitrophan of Voronezh. He had a lay brother, whom he loved very much. One day, before the end of Great Lent, as he was heading for his cell in the monastery, he caught a strong smell of fish wafting from his lay brother\u2019s cell. The Prelate knocked at the door, entered the cell and saw his lay brother in company with a man, both eating fish soup. He addressed him: \u2018Brother, why on earth are you doing this?\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The monastery was governed by very strict rules and the prelate himself was a strict faster.<\/span><\/p>\n

His lay brother\u2019s reply was: \u2018You see, this man and I come from the same village and he is my childhood friend; we were like a hand\u00a0fitting into a\u00a0glove. It\u2019s the first time in 15 years that he\u2019s visited me. He has brought me some fish as a present. I can\u2019t just throw it away and if left uncooked, the fish would rot! That\u2019s why we have cooked fish soup\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Well, if that\u2019s the case, I might as well join you\u2019, answered the prelate. And so he did, not because he was hungry, but because friendship and love was as important as the abstinence from fish during the Great Lent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having said that, I don\u2019t think we should break the fast, because if we do what else does there remain to observe? If we have committed ourselves to fasting, let us stick to this commitment, as one can\u2019t have faith without being faithful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is another fasting related story. An acquaintance of mine was having some very serious problems and she frequently travelled to see a spiritual person to seek advice. Once she said to him, \u2018I have voluntarily undertaken the obedience of reading two kathismas every day.\u00a0Do you think I have\u00a0chosen wisely?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

He asked her, \u2018Why exactlytwo<\/em>kathismas? You are having such grave problems in your life! Just take a Psalm book and read it all! Read it again and again! What you are doing now is nothing but spiritual murmuring. If you need to achieve something essential, you should sacrifice for it accordingly. Do you wish for your sacrifice to be of value? Ifthere is no deepsacrifice,\u00a0how\u00a0will you show your need and worth\u00a0for anything big and important, such as a good husband, good health for your children or good living conditions? As\u00a0you call, so\u00a0shall the\u00a0echo reply\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her life afterwards did change forthebetter. Any sacrifice one makes, any relinquishment of something very dear to you is not done in vain. Fasting is not about suffering.But if your sacrifice is worth a penny, so shall you receive a penny in return. If you spend much of your time engrossed in reading fiction and only manage to devote fifteen minutes of your time to\u00a0your Psalm book every now and then,\u00a0you show yourself as\u00a0a bibliophile, not an Orthodox Christian.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lent is the right time for one to change oneself for the better. This is a time when prayers can especially be heard and tears can be appreciated, for God Himself assigned such a time for us. If it was all unimportant, would the Holy Light descend upon us? One can\u2019t live an accustomed, habitual life while fasting; during fasting there occurs a motion, a breakthrough. This is a time in the spiritual life when fruits are borne and they can clearly be seen. It is tempting to think that if\u00a0one thing fails to be successful, then other things will fail to do well too but it does not happen in this way. Fasting is a covenant with God, when we agree that we want to be part of this covenant.\u00a0What\u2019sthe point in making an agreement if we break it? What is so difficult about fulfilling\u00a0a\u00a0covenant you have chosen to make?<\/span><\/p>\n

In his wonderful \u2018Indian Letters\u2019, St Nicholas Serbian tells us about some Indians travelling across Europe, observing its spiritual life and relating their observations. What they were especially amazed to see was that people in Europe attended church only once a week and said prayers before meals only. So the Indian travellers asked, puzzled, \u2018How can it be that Muslims, above whose faith you extol yours, pray five times a day?\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0It is equally puzzling that\u00a0we believe that if a person attends church twice a month and reads the Rule of Prayer, they can be looked up to. There is nothing in fasting that you aren\u2019t able to cope with.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013How must we live through the\u00a0Holy Week?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Holy Week is the most\u00a0charged and\u00a0important time in the life of the Church and a time for us to be closer to Christ, to\u00a0enter more deeply into His Sufferings and Death. During this time,\u00a0we should try and\u00a0live in its fullness these most precious\u00a0days of the Church\u2019s\u00a0life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week are the dearest moments to me because everything \u2013 the events and the feelings during this period\u00a0\u2013 are real, with the descent of the Holy Light at its completion. Religion and cult are immaterial, almost ethereal, whereas fasting is tangible as there are many things you can touch. This is a miracle period. Fasting is necessary for one to feel the events, to be able to live through them. These are truly remarkable days.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Father Alexander Volokhov is the rector of the Nikitskaya church of the Domodedovsky deanery. We\u2019ve asked Fr Alexander to share his thoughts on how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62],"tags":[43,27,17,7],"class_list":["post-21077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-thoughts","tag-great-lent","tag-interviews","tag-lent-and-fasting","tag-personal-thoughts-on-orthodoxy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/eEzWRqrRe28.jpg","views":{"total":152,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768403355},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-5tX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21087,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21077\/revisions\/21087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}