"Jesus God! I am a stranger to You... became impoverished from every good deed and darkened" [38].

"You see the sorrow of my heart, you see my tears. Save me, who fall down to Thee in repentance" [39].

"Snatch me from the fierce devil and clothe me in the first garment" [40].

"Savior! The way of my life is terrible. Give me time and the morals of repentance... before death overtakes me" [41].

"A multitude of cruel sins bind me with chains, set me free, my Christ" [42].

"Merciful! Have mercy on me, who have fallen" [43].

"Oh my God! Give me clouds of tears so that I may weep and wash away the filth" [44].

"My heart is full of the wounds of sin. Apply to me a plaster of repentance" [45].

"Do not destroy me, who am coarse by sin" [46].

"My whole life has been spent in sins. Will I be able to repent in my old age? God! before my final destruction, save me" [47].

"Lord! The carnal way of thinking darkens me" [48].

"Lift me up, who lie in iniquity" [49]. "Look at me with merciful eyes and be merciful to me" [50].

"The Lamb of God, who takes away my sin all the day! I completely commit my soul and body into Your hands... Do not cast me away from Your Face" [51].

The humble prayers of the fasting are quickly heard by God. In answering them, He invisibly but "sensibly extends the grace of forgiveness of their sins" to the men of prayer [52].

In order for the prayer of the fasting for the forgiveness of sins to be more effective before the Lord, the holy hymn-singers of the Church teach us to combine prayerful intensity with works of mercy for the poor and needy.

The penitent must change his former careless attitude towards people. He is obliged to be merciful and philanthropic to them. "He who harnesses generosity to humility rushes to God faster than the Lydian chariot" [53].

Speaking in liturgical language, the ascetic in fasting "kindles the lamp of the soul with the fire of good works" [54], when he gives bread to the hungry, shelter to the bloodless, and lovingly nourishes them, as the prophet Elisha fed the sons of the prophets.

According to the Scriptures, those who put their treasures in the hands of the poor enter the Kingdom of God. Having mercy on the poor, they lend to God, Who repays them for doing good with divine generosity. The oil of charity increases the burning of the fasting with love for God, attracts to them a special merciful favor of God. The Lord gives them heavenly things instead of earthly things, and instead of the bread they have distributed, the food of grace; instead of the perishable garment given to the poor, the robe of grace-filled light [55].

Through humility, prayer and mercy, those who fast open themselves, as it were, to the reception of God's grace, and the Lord graciously warms and enlightens those who aspire to God. For the courageous endurance of painful labors of abstinence, they are adorned from above with the grace of fasting and blossom with fasting virtues [56].

The canons and stichera of the Lenten Triodion irresistibly attract attention by reminding us of the many God-bearing fasters of the Old Testament and New Testament times, beginning with the God-Man Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ the Saviour, by the personal example of forty days of fasting, illuminated and legitimized for all mankind the days of fasting, as a means of overcoming the devil's wiles, cunning traps and enemy arrows [57].