The Great Lent
The General Message of the Lecture
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III speaks about the Great Lent as a spiritual path of repentance and inner transformation, not merely bodily abstinence from food. True fasting is the fasting of the heart and the soul together, connected with prayer, repentance, and the love of God.
First: Fasting as a Spiritual Virtue
His Holiness explains that fasting is not an independent bodily virtue, but a spiritual one that aims to lift the soul toward God. Abstaining from food or changing its type is not sufficient unless it is accompanied by an inner change in thought, heart, and behavior.
Second: Fasting and Repentance
Fasting is a means to sincere repentance. God does not look at the hungry body, but at the pure heart. Therefore, fasting that does not lead to true repentance and abandoning sin is a false and unacceptable fast.
Third: Fasting and Spiritual Victory
True fasting is capable of casting out demons, not only from others, but from within the person himself, meaning breaking the authority of sin and weakness. Fasting helps a person to overcome bodily desires and everything that separates him from God.
Fourth: Self-Examination and the Point of Weakness
His Holiness emphasizes the necessity of searching during fasting for one’s main point of weakness or the sin that troubles him, and focusing on healing it. Victory in this point is the essence of acceptable fasting.
Fifth: Fasting as a Sacred Period
The Great Lent is a sacred and extraordinary period in which the soul is fully dedicated to God, and the person distances himself from material matters to be occupied with prayer, repentance, and spiritual growth.
Sixth: Integrated Fasting
Acceptable fasting is the fasting of the body together with the fasting of the soul: abstinence from food, detachment from material things, along with prayer, repentance, love, and purity of heart. In this way, God rejoices in the person’s fasting and accepts it.
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