Blog
The Season of Lent: An Opportunity for Reflection
All of us lead lives so filled with the demands of
work and family that little time is left to us to
cultivate the garden of our soul. In our
preoccupation with the ceaseless business of life,
our spirit, if not completely forgotten, is often
sadly neglected. When we do find the time to look at
ourselves honestly, we soon discover that the spirit
of the world has gradually and imperceptibly eaten
away at our good intentions; we have become shopworn
by the cares and self-centered spirit of the world.
Fortunately for us, the church recognized from its
earliest days that we would need regular periods of
reflection and renewed effort if we were to free
ourselves from the relentless grip of worldly cares,
to once again imitate the example of Christ and
reflect it in our lives. It did so by developing the
season of Lent, a season which invites us to renew
our concentration on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
which lie at the very heart of Christian living.
Through the discipline of quiet prayer, we
acknowledge and affirm the sovereignty of almighty
God in our lives. In doing so, we surrender the
notion of living according to the principle of
power; we accept that we are not the measure of all
things. In the practice of fasting, we seek to
overcome the power that material things have gained
over us; we strive to be servants of the sacred and
not merely masters of the material and profane.
Finally, we are called to almsgiving, through which
we share the fruits of our labor with those in need,
and thus surrender our natural tendency to be
self-seeking. Prayer which unites us to God, fasting
which curbs our ceaseless desires, almsgiving which
allows us to actively love our neighbor as ourselves
--- these are the transforming gifts of Lent.
If they are to convey their wonderful grace,
however, we must make them the tools by which we
deepen and enrich our faith and relationship to
Jesus Christ. That, truly, is what it means to be a
Christian. The wisdom of the ages invites us once
again to this marvelous opportunity to find God in
our lives; let us take care that we not waste it.
— Fr. Andrew Demotses
Fr Andrew Demotses is Pastor Emeritus of St.
Vasilios Greek Orthodox Church in Peabody, MA.
Fr. Andrew's sermons and reflections have been a
regular feature of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
for decades.