"Please explain to me the following," my new acquaintance turned to me then. - I live in a shared apartment with other women who also believe and are preparing for the holiday. They are usually nice people, but something happens to them before the holiday: they all become so irritable, quarrelsome, and sometimes even angry. Why is that?

"Forgive them for that," I answered with a sigh to the unbelieving neighbor in turn, inwardly grieving for my foolish sisters in Christ. - After all, they have a very difficult time during Holy Week. They consider it necessary to fast intensively and weaken in strength. At the same time, they try not to miss the long services that are supposed to be attended every day at this time. At the same time, they need to make a general cleaning of the apartment or rooms, buy everything they need for the holiday and prepare all the Easter treats - Easter, Easter cakes, painted eggs, etc.

I gave an explanation to my neighbor, but was it their excuse? Of course not. In the pursuit of external rite, they lost the most important thing in religion - the peace of the soul, and with it the Holy Spirit, and they lowered both themselves and the Christian religion in the eyes of non-believers."

Chapter 21 The Meaning of Repentance and Its Examples

The temple of the body is all defiled. But as Thou art Generous, cleanse us with Thy gracious mercy.

From the Lenten hymns

The call to repentance was the first call, the first preaching of Christ: "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Matt. 4:17).

But perhaps intensified repentance is needed only for great sinners, and not for us?

In the Gospel there is one, at first glance, mysterious phrase. The Lord said: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9:13).

And He was often accused of having more dealings with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors, and less with those who strictly observed the law of Moses, with the scribes and Pharisees.

Why did the Lord not want to deal with the "righteous"? Because those who considered themselves "righteous" who had no need of repentance were in fact in self-deception, were proud, i.e. sinned with the sin most hateful to God, and were spiritually incurable, thanks to the complete absence of consciousness of their sinfulness.

There are no "righteous" people on earth at all. The Prophet David said: "All have deviated, have become equally useless; there is none that doeth good, there is not one" (Psalm 13:3).And one elder (his name remains unknown) said to his disciple thus: "Know, son, that not only I and you, imaginary monks, are in need of unceasing sobriety and weeping, but also the great ascetics need them. Hear the following spiritual reasoning: lies from the devil; a passionate view of a woman is imputed by God to fornication. Anger against one's neighbor is numbered among murder, for every idle word a reward is promised. Who is a man and where can he be found, who would not know lies, who would not be tempted by lust, who would never be angry with his neighbor in vain, in whom idle talk would not be found and who, therefore, would not need repentance?"

And here is what Fr. Alexander Elchaninov writes about the same thing: "You justify yourself by saying that your offense is small, unimportant. But there is nothing unimportant, insignificant in the world - neither bad nor good. The most insignificant action, the most casual word, the most fleeting feeling, are as important and real as everything in the world. Therefore, all the smallest must correspond to the most important, and nothing can be considered unworthy of attention or free from our responsibility." Let us conquer our prideful consciousness of our illusory "righteousness," let us pity our poor soul, disgraced by sin and passions, which is in bondage to the evil spirit, and realize for ourselves the need for active, deep repentance.

Thus, all people without exception need repentance: all are sick, all are in spiritual ulcers.