In a message at the beginning of Great Lent, Archbishop Irineu of Alba Iulia called the Lenten season “a time of purification and illumination.”
The Romanian Archbishop noted that fasting “is a gift offered to us by the Church”, and through specific religious services, we are reminded that “sin and death have distanced us from God and each other.”
According to His Eminence, a Christian who fasts during the forty days of Lent “already puts on Christ” to participate even more thoroughly “in His passions and come out with Him from the tomb victorious over evil and death.”
The Archbishop of Alba Iulia added that the Church addresses the call to understand Lent “as a return to the usual ascetic struggle,” explaining that it is a struggle that “liberates us from the death and corruption of the fallen creation.”
“The man who fasts breaks the infernal circle of the dialectic of desire and pleasure, of hunger and satiety, directing his desire towards the contemplation of heavenly realities,” the Archbishop stressed.
“This helps him to walk in the newness of life (Rom. 6:4), living as a son of the resurrection (Luke 20:36),” Archbishop Irineu noted in his message.
Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro Files
Source: basilica.ro
