Long before the birth of Christ, a clever Chinese man named Kung-tzu (Confucius in our language) said that the world was being distorted, words had lost their meaning, and it was necessary to give new names to things and concepts. Bowing our heads before the wise Chinese, we still admit today that humility is confused with an inferiority complex, courage with impudence, generosity with stupidity, and so on ad infinitum. The time of Great Lent obliges us to talk about repentance – and we, as children of the twentieth century! century, you will immediately have to justify yourself.

Repentance is not at all the announcement of one's filthy deeds and not reflection on one's own shortcomings in one's own minds and aloud. And not much else that is erroneously attributed to real repentance. In its divine services, the Church calls repentance "joyful." As, for example, in the service to the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God there are words in one of the troparia: "Let us weep for our sins, but for the mercy of God we will rejoice." True repentance gives birth to joy: joy for the forgiveness of sins, for the fact that hope has been given to you again, and the page has been turned, and God has forgotten your untruths, and life goes on. This bright attitude to repentance either does not exist at all, or is almost non-existent. It was mistakenly confused with some kind of spiritual fanaticism, self-flagellation, where there is no scourge. The Catholics logically went further and reached the point of self-torture. And the Orthodox, without taking extreme steps, stood halfway and mixed repentance with self-abasement, anguish, sorrow, and with many things that have nothing to do with God. When Anthony spent 20 years in the wilderness, and those who knew him came to him, they saw a man (I will never forget these words) "whole in mind, sound in soul and body, initiated into the mysteries and embraced by God." This is true repentance. Like him is Moses, who at the age of 120 did not lose a single tooth, did not weaken in sight and was strong in body, like a mature man. This is repentance. The rest is boredom, whining and the quiet howl of a weak and stupid person who considers himself (think about it!) an ascetic.

Great Lent requires of all of us wholeness, that is, the gathering together of all the components of our nature: mind, will, feelings. And the one who does not eat from Monday to Friday, and the one who simply quit smoking, and the one who refused to eat sweets ("necessary" for life) – all of them are ascetics. Remembering Confucius, it must be said that we also understand the word "feat" incorrectly. For the average person, the feat is associated with rifle volleys, a sinking ship, and icy peaks. In fact, the real feat is to move oneself from the dead center, it is the ability and desire to awaken one's deadness and take a step towards the Father Who Himself runs to meet the prodigal son.

It is not for nothing that we read about Zacchaeus on the eve of the post. About a man of venerable age and respected because of his wealth, who was not ashamed to climb a tree to see Jesus. Our post is nothing more than the ridiculous attempts of a fat and middle-aged man to "climb a tree" in order to look into the eyes of the One Who came to save man.

Your muscles are flabby, your social status obliges you to certain rules. You are wise in the eyes of those who know you. And here you are, like the last boy, sweating and straining your weak body, climbing a tree. You're a laughing stock. But you don't care about that. This is fasting.

Of course, it is not food that makes a fasting person fasting. The saints knew how to eat meat in public as if it were carrots. The foundation of fasting is humility. Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) said that the Latin humilitas (humility) is associated with "humus" (fertile soil). He meant that humility is fruitful, that it is open to God as the earth is open to heaven, and to every raindrop, and to every seed that is cast into it. The earth is capable of transforming any rot into fertile soil, and it always gives birth. Such is humility. If humility does not give rise to the ability to forgive, the ability to work, the ability to give one's own, this is not humility, but the inferiority complex against which atheists, who do not know the meaning of holy words, rebel so much.

It is obvious to me that repentance is one of the steps towards achieving the state of which the Apostle Paul speaks: that the man of God may be perfect, prepared for every good work. To confuse the penitent with the melancholy, or the despondent, or simply the melancholic, is a textbook but monstrous mistake. Let every penitent remember the words of Christ about fasting: anoint your head, wash your face, that is, appear not to fasting people, as hypocrites, but to God, Who sees in secret. The penitent is joyful, strange as it may seem. And Chesterton said that it was not difficult to recognize a good man: he had a smile on his face and a pain in his heart. By the way, the procession into the narthex during the litany meant nothing else than the Church's participation in the sorrows of unbelieving humanity and prayer to God "for all and for all." So we have to repent in such a way that we do not irritate the unbeliever, and we do not seduce the believer, and we ourselves grow, and do not descend. It's hard, isn't it? And who has it easy now? – everyone standing in the bazaar will answer.

What can be advised to "those who fast pleasantly, pleasing to the Lord" is to join the life of some Orthodox monastery. After all, during Great Lent we are all monks. And how else can Orthodoxy be understood, if not from within the Byzantine, Eastern, long, most beautiful, exhausting, spiritualizing divine services? Therefore, everyone who thinks he is Orthodox should hasten to the Orthodox monastery closest to his place of residence or work, where, trembling like a burning candle, he will listen to the Great Canon and everything that he can contain, in order to really partake of the burning of the spirit that gave birth to Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, and Jonah of Kiev.

Christ is with you!

244 The Price of Freedom

The time has come again for changes and good changes in the lives of a huge number of people. And yours as well, dear reader. This is the time of fasting, the time of spiritual spring, the time of release.

All the most important things in our life take place in the barely discernible darkness at the bottom of our hearts, where between the two poles of "sin" and "righteousness", as between minus and plus, burns a thread of the intensity of our life. Money, housing, clothes, dating, weather, illness, politics, news, all this is just a thin film on the surface of a deep lake, the name of which is the heart. There are creeping things, which are innumerable, small animals with great ones (Psalm 103:25). Life outside depends entirely on life inside, on whether you are free or bound, strong with inner strength or tired and drained of blood. Fasting time is a time to travel within. Like a speleologist in a cave, like a diver into the depths of the sea, a person will have a difficult descent into the heart. The poet said: "Oh, do not wake the storms of those who have fallen asleep - chaos is stirring under them." And we're just going to wake up the storms and disturb the chaos. Let's go fight the serpent coiled in the deepest depths.

First, let's arm ourselves. By the invincible power of the Life-Giving Cross and humility. Humility will be our shield, and the Cross will be a two-edged sword. And let us not be afraid. We will inevitably be wounded, even tormented and almost torn to shreds. Not a single one will remain safe after this fight. Everyone will lick their wounds. But the crown of the award, the future triumph is worth getting involved in the fight.