Protopresbyter Antonios Christou
Dear readers, Great Lent is a time of strenuous, spiritual struggle with ourselves (less sleep, less nutrition, less ease and preoccupation with things we like doing, greater participation in the services and prayers, and so on). I don’t know, however, whether we truly realize the extent to which another fundamental aim is charity towards others. Apart from the general principle expressed in the Sermon on the Mount (‘Blessed are the merciful* for they shall obtain mercy’, Matth. 5, 7), the aim of the fast is that we should spend less on ourselves, in terms of quality and quantity, as compared to other times of the year; and that any surplus funds should be given to others as charity. Among other things, this is what the Gospel of the Judgement tells us on the third preparatory Sunday of the Triodio: that we should serve the needs of others, because Christ takes this as a gift to himself.
It’s true that, on the first Sunday of the…
