How often has it been said that we can imbue our actions and words with one meaning or another! How, and by what means, can we transform this Great Lent from a daunting trial into an inspiring journey? When a monk approaches Great Lent with inspiration, the fast truly becomes a period of preparation to receive the light of Christ’s Resurrection. If fear takes hold, it can harm your health and make fasting an ordeal. Instead, focus your mind and spirit on something holy to draw strength and inspiration.
Saint Sophrony the Athonite (born Sergiy Symeonovich Sakharov)
I will share with you thoughts that have been precious to me. What have I observed in the life of the world — both the human realm and the broader creation, the whole animal kingdom? Only a human being can hold back when a feast is laid before them: a person granted a spirit reflecting the image of Eternal God Who creates everything from nothing. Let this thought linger in your mind awhile. Thus, whether we abstain from food, sleep, or other things — all such acts nurture within us that which aligns with the Divine Image. To cleanse this image of God within us, now obscured by sin — this is our task! When this truth lives in us, our abstinence ceases to be meaningless. And so, the great aim of our monastic life is to become like Christ Himself, Who took on human form, revealing His Divinity.
This Great Fast is established in remembrance of the Lord’s own forty-day fast in the wilderness, where He dwelt among wild beasts and, in the end, even permitted the demon to approach Him and conversed with him. What can we glean from the substance of Christ’s own life, as we discern it in the Gospels, in tradition, and in the apostolic epistles? Consider the Apostle Paul, that brilliant poet of the Spirit, who declares: “We, as humans, must have the same thoughts, the same dispositions, as Christ.”
Where lies the mystery? In this: if we strive to mirror God who became man, this likeness reaches into eternity — the eternity that was before the world's creation. Our individual being, our very personhood, must grow and develop within us to embody the mind of Christ Himself.
What must we hold in our consciousness to avoid being unsettled by the trivial nature of many of our actions — those tied to fasting and, more broadly, to the ascetic struggle of monastic life? We must ensure that the “mindset” we see in Christ becomes our own. Saint John the Theologian offers a remarkable insight: “We know that we are children of God, but what we shall be after departing this world has not yet been revealed. We know only that when we see Him as He is, we will become like Him — conformed to His likeness.”
Therefore, my young brothers and sisters, do remember this and become “creators” in your own right, as Saint Gregory the Theologian teaches — creators of all things, beginning with the smallest. Through these seemingly minor acts, we quietly prepare our spirit and our entire being to receive the uncreated Divine breath. Like the Apostle Paul — that brilliant poet, theologian, and philosopher — let us, too, become builders of our eternal salvation in God.
“I await the resurrection of the dead.” When we say these words of the Creed of Faith, we must remember that they express a state of the spirit — a spirit that looks forward to the coming of Christ. This anticipation is the fruit of our creativity; it is, and will be, the energy that will surely resurrect us.
Oh, how I long for all of you to become poets! Indeed, without creative inspiration, we cannot live even a single day as Christians should. Thus, let us open our hearts and minds to the resurrection that lies before us, just as the Lord fasted forty days in the wilderness, dwelling among wild beasts, before His earthly ministry.
Today, I have spoken these words to fix your minds on the spiritual labor that awaits us. To this, I add: we must be not only poets but courageous warriors. The Lord said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force and striving, and those who press forward seize it eagerly.” (c.f. Matthew 11:12). While we live on Earth, our bodily experience teaches us that we must constantly eat, drink, sleep, and rest to replenish our physical energy. So too in the spiritual realm — we must nourish our soul and mind with effort.
You know the phrase often uttered with irony: “Ah, he is in the throes of creativity.” This could be said of any artist in any field. By this path, beginning with the smallest of things, we prepare ourselves for the manifestation of God Himself within us. And our faith rests in this: that we truly receive the uncreated life of God Himself. When we “imitate the incarnate God” — I speak of Christ — this likeness transcends into the realm of the Spirit after our death. If we have been like Him on Earth, as He was, we will also be like Him in His beginningless eternity.
Do you see the audacity of the words we proclaim: “the beginningless eternity of God will be communicated to us!” Is such boldness not a mark of our “madness”? Yet the brilliant Paul teaches that this very “folly” saves the world. What Christ has promised us transcends earthly understanding. Our minds may be gifted for scientific thought or action, for philosophy and much else — but not for believing in eternity. Yet even children, as the Lord said, can believe in eternity. Behold, even now, the same yearning for the Heavenly God, the same Spirit, compels us to follow Christ.
I heard someone say not long ago: “I am weary of suffering. I no longer want to suffer. I seek earthly peace, joy, happiness — my soul recoils from pain.” Though this man was Orthodox, his thinking was not truly Orthodox. To embrace all creation with love, we must pass through many agonizing states and endure much suffering. But the energy for this suffering is given by Christ’s commandment of self-renunciation — of loving God and neighbour above ourselves.
I have spoken to you of things that are, in essence, awe-inspiring. During the earthly life of the incarnate God, Jesus Christ was the only Man who, having given the commandment of self-renunciation in love for God and neighbour, went to Golgotha not to save Himself but to endure all suffering out of boundless love for humanity. Oh, this Image — the God-Man! Those who have beheld this vision can find nothing like it anywhere else.
The Lord commanded us to do what He Himself fulfilled: out of love for others, He surrendered Himself to all sufferings — not only to death, but to a death perceived as a curse under the Old Covenant: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Deut. 21:23). We fall short of the measure we see in Christ, yet we understand why our forefathers — and first among them, John the Baptist — recognised God in Him. Consider the wondrous example of John: when people were ready to acclaim him as the awaited Messiah, he declared, “No! There is Another who comes after me, the Saviour of the world!” How often do those on Earth, entrusted with great authority over others, presume themselves uniquely worthy of such power! Yet Saint John found the strength to renounce this role and testify as one living by the vision of Christ.
When our mind ascends to contemplate Christ ascending Golgotha, words indeed fail us. We worship Him as God — now in silence. In the difficult moments of the coming Lenten days, each of you will endure trials, and then we shall remember Christ, who spent forty days and nights in the wilderness.
On the eve of Great Lent, we celebrate the “Service of Great Forgiveness.” As we humbly ask our brethren’s pardon for every offense committed in thought or deed, we must also remember the Dread Judgment. It is said that the Lord will come in glory, and when He sits upon His throne, all nations — from the first created to the last born of woman — will gather before Him. Therefore, let your mind rise from small things, which nevertheless mirror realities boundless and eternal. In the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Christ fulfills and transcends the Mosaic Law: ‘You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder”… But I say to you…’ (Matt. 5:21–22). Each time, He reveals the commandments’ eternal depth, lifting them into the boundless horizon of Divine love.
And so I, your brother, urge you now to employ this very method to make your life fruitful: from the smallest things, ascend to the boundless!
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As we journey through Great Lent, a season of repentance and renewal, we invite you to deepen your reflection with this ancient Russian penitential verse. Sung in the solemn Znamenny chant, its timeless plea — ‘Arise now with tears, light your candle, hasten, O soul’ — echoes Fr. Sophrony’s call to awaken the heart through inspired ascetic labor. May this sacred melody stir your spirit to embrace Lent not as a burden, but as a path to divine encounter.
Source: Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Spiritual Talks, Vol. 1.
