ROC Primate: Lent is a shock therapy, actuation of our consciousness

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. Photo: YouTube

On March 4, 2020, on Wednesday of the first week of Great Lent, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus, during his sermon at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, said that Great Lent is shock therapy, necessary for a person to shake his consciousness, according to the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church.

According to him, "fasting, prayer, repentance, mercy are the means by which a person is able to spiritually transform his life, to become different."

He emphasized that “fasting is aimed to break the chain of our everyday life, those shackles that connect us with our old habits, inclinations, and the established way of life.”

“Fasting invades our lives – both with discipline related to food restrictions and with the custom of visiting the temple of God as often as possible, attending divine services being long enough. All this does not fit into the ordinary life of most people,” said the Patriarch.

That is why, says the Primate of the Russian Church, “We can say that fasting is a kind of shock therapy, when it is necessary to shake the human body for medical purposes so that it works differently. Fasting is a kind of actuation of our consciousness, an impact on our will, on our feelings so that we recognize the need for a genuine change in our lives.”

The Patriarch reminded that “Great Lent is the time when we must find the strength in ourselves – the power of reason, the power of will, the power of feelings – in order to try to meet the lofty moral demands of Christianity in our life; it offers us to significantly limit ourselves to what we are used to."

The Hierarch emphasized that through prayer, through fasting, through mercy, "the Lord opens an amazing opportunity for us – to attain in our hearts lofty feelings and abilities which, when implemented in our lives, really change it for the better."

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to Patriarch Kirill, we should try to at least mentally partake in the experience of the prayers of those ascetics who dedicated their whole life to standing before God.

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