Orthodox Christians will begin Great Lent for Easter tomorrow, from February 23 to April 12, 2026. On this occasion, Archbishop Joan shared a message with all believers, describing Lent as a journey toward God.<\/p>\n
Full message of Archbishop Joan (English translation)<\/p>\n
We constantly say that Lent is a journey. Not only Lent, but our very life is a journey. All of us who have begun Lent have begun a journey. The period that changes colors has begun. God often shows us through the Gospel the condition we are in. Not only God, but many philosophers and psychologists also say that people have lost their \u201cself,\u201d and whoever loses the self has lost everything. Everything else a person tries to gain cannot fulfill what the \u201cself\u201d can give.<\/p>\n
One reason a person thinks they have lost the \u201cself\u201d is when they cannot even understand that they have lost it. You have heard it said in the parable of the \u201cProdigal Son\u201d about the son who returned and \u201ccame to himself\u201d (Luke 15:17). This means he began to understand the situation he was in. No one can begin the journey of Lent if they do not come to themselves.<\/p>\n
Today we have lost the purpose of life. The desire for pleasure, the thirst for power, and other empty things like these cannot help a person not only give meaning to life, but they will not make them happy either. Happiness and life\u2019s purpose are connected to one another. No one can achieve happiness without having a purpose in life. People today have no reason to live and no reason for the purpose of life.<\/p>\n
This happens even among people of the Church who think they believe and come regularly to church, but have lost the reason to live and the reason to die. The very fact that we often have resentments, quarrels, gossip, and many empty things within the Church shows that these people are idle and are not traveling. Because a person who travels does not deal with what happens at the station; they think only about the journey. The fact that we deal with many things around us means the sense of the journey has been lost.<\/p>\n
Throughout history humanity has pursued wealth. People have accumulated great wealth and yet have not become happy. The Ecclesiastes says that even knowledge is \u201cvanity of vanities.\u201d No matter how much wealth you gather, it cannot serve you and it cannot bring happiness. You know how rich Solomon was, and yet he was not happy, because he himself says \u201cvanity of vanities\u201d (Ecclesiastes 1:2).<\/p>\n
Truly, no one can achieve happiness if their soul does not find rest in God. Man is created in the image of the Trinity, which means our soul will always be restless unless it rests in God. Saint Augustine says: \u201cLord, You created me in Your image, and we will never find rest until we rest in You.\u201d Rest in God cannot be understood without the journey toward Him. This is why we call Lent a kind of journey: a journey from the physical condition we are in to another, deeper spiritual condition.<\/p>\n
This journey requires sacrifice and effort. Just as Holy Scripture teaches, Israel returned to the Promised Land by passing through the desert, which symbolizes liberation and the spiritual state of the human being. Regaining what you have lost is not easy; therefore the journey is filled with difficulties and sacrifices, which require a kind of self-denial.<\/p>\n
Human childish reasoning and irresponsible judgment, without truly knowing the real condition of a person and their needs, proposed different kinds of \u201cliberations.\u201d The prodigal son also proposed them to himself, because even his departure was a movement for liberation. The story of the prodigal son is the story of all humanity. Each of us, like the prodigal son, is in a distant place\u2014outside our true condition\u2014so every other condition becomes a \u201cfar country.\u201d<\/p>\n
How many of us have continual communion with God? How many of us live deeply spiritually with Him? Very few. This is what philosophers have called the \u201ctragic sense of life,\u201d because we have lost so many things we once had. Communion with God is not only for saints. All people are created in the image of God, created to be in eternal communion with Him, but this purpose has been lost today. Returning to it comes from a desire, from a longing for the other world. The son longed, as the Bible says, \u201che longed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In how many of our souls and hearts is the longing for the other world ignited? How many of us think about the other world and its existence? Often this does not happen even among people within the Church. We witness the lives of people who think they believe but do not have the desire to go to the Father. No one can go anywhere if they do not desire to go.<\/p>\n
However we view freedom\u2014whether as a burden or a gift\u2014we cannot escape it. None of us can be freed from being free. This is one of the main foundations of Christian doctrine: everyone is created free to accept or not accept God, to begin or not begin the journey.<\/p>\n
Many people have tried to find happiness, many have tried to make a person happy without God, but without God happiness cannot be found. All attempts at happiness without God will end like Adam\u2019s first attempt, who wanted to become a god without God. In their efforts to find happiness, people not only lost the sense of the journey, but lost the journey itself. Therefore, in this period, each of us should think about the journey.<\/p>\n
Whether we want it or not, one day we will be at the end of the journey. Even if someone lived 200 years, they would still finish it. It is good for that journey to begin today. A life outside the journey is no longer life.<\/p>\n
A person cannot make the journey unless they truly want and decide to. People have different desires within them; this does not mean they are all natural\u2014they come from a nature deformed by passion. This is why God begins human history with a \u201cdo not.\u201d The first dialogue God had with man was a prohibition: \u201cDo not eat from the tree\u201d (Genesis 3). The \u201cdo not\u201d was placed not only to fulfill the human being\u2019s existence but also their freedom, because not every opposition to \u201cdo not\u201d is a sign of freedom.<\/p>\n
Man has a great spiritual dimension and must fulfill it. Lent helps more than anything for liberation, even if only somewhat. This may seem surprising, but asceticism is a movement for the greatest liberation from the false self. As a well-known Orthodox theologian says: \u201cLiberation lies precisely in the liberation of freedom.\u201d Our self has been taken captive, and we do not yet know what our truly free condition is; therefore, the various restrictions we will have during Lent will make us free.<\/p>\n
Restrictions should not be seen as mere prohibitions or as deprivation, but as protection. We often read but do not understand that most of the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1\u201317) is made up of \u201cdo nots.\u201d God\u2019s relationship with us is like a parent\u2019s relationship with children: you tell a child, \u201cdon\u2019t go here, don\u2019t go there.\u201d The same happens with us in relation to God. These \u201cdo nots\u201d are not to limit us, but to protect us, because we have fallen from our first condition and have lost responsibility in freedom.<\/p>\n
We must desire our true freedom\u2014the freedom for which we must decide for the journey. Modern man has lost this responsibility and does not even care what the purpose of life is. This is why religious teachings, sermons, Christ\u2019s parables, and Saint John\u2019s preaching were words that awakened a spiritual crisis in people\u2014a spiritual cry\u2014precisely so that a person might understand the purpose of human life.<\/p>\n
It is a great tragedy to see a person created in the image of God live in this way. What we must reflect on today is exactly this. We are beings who must go somewhere, because we have moved away from that \u201csomewhere.\u201d What the Church constantly emphasizes is this: we live in a deformed condition; our nature and our reasoning are deformed; therefore, deprivations are for our healing.<\/p>\n
No one would say that medicine given by a doctor does not work because it is bitter. Likewise, we cannot say that Lent and other ascetic restrictions do not help and hinder our freedom; on the contrary, they strengthen our freedom. Who would be so foolish as to say, \u201cLet the child play with a pistol so you don\u2019t deprive his freedom\u201d? If we understood these prohibitions deeply, every day we would kiss the pages of the Decalogue filled with those \u201cdo nots.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss of life\u2019s purpose and the loss of self has made man unable to understand. This is why many people do not understand and move toward the abyss. We may think we are different because we come to church, but I have not seen any difference between one who believes and one who does not when both steal and both lie. Where is faith then? A faith that does not create in the soul a desire for journey is not faith.<\/p>\n
Therefore, this period of journey is for us to look deeply into every corner of our soul: Do we truly believe or not? Is this faith an ornament for us, or a basic need of life? Is God insurance for us, or the root of our soul? Can anyone live outside life? We constantly say in psalms and sermons: God is life, and every life outside God is crippled. And yet, is our life truly immersed and deeply rooted in God? These are the questions a person must ask during Great Lent. These make a person begin their journey.<\/p>\n
This season of Lent is not separated from joy. Even the hymns say: \u201cLet us begin this period with joy.\u201d If Lent begins, joy will come on its own. Joy does not come because we do not begin. The journey toward God is filled with joy. There is no life more beautiful than traveling toward God and living on this path. Nothing can be compared with the great joy that the return to God and the journey toward Him can give the human soul.<\/p>\n
This gives the soul its true dimension. Therefore Lent is a period of renewal, a period for establishing a spiritual condition so that we may fulfill our existence (Mark 12:30). Do not neglect this. The Church continually gives chances. The whole liturgical life of the Church is a journey and helps us to realize the personal meeting\u2014the journey toward God.<\/p>\n
No one can go to God if they do not begin this journey, and the beginning of this journey is repentance. Whoever has not repented and does not continue to repent shows that they are not on the journey. Repentance is not simply realizing you have sinned; that is only a small part of it. Repentance means that longing is ignited for the Father\u2019s house, and then the journey begins.<\/p>\n
If we do not begin this, there is no repentance. No matter how much we live a pseudo-spiritual life, as if we were great penitents, such repentance becomes a demonic repentance. Such people become the most incomprehensible and think they are humble and religious. People have begun to become proud simply because they think they are humble. Those who think they are on the journey but in truth are not are in a difficult position. That is why God\u2019s anger is greater toward the Pharisees (see Matthew 23).<\/p>\n
We might feel ashamed before a Pharisee. He fasted twice a week. Who among us does that today? He gave a tithe\u2014who does that? He did not commit adultery and avoided many other sins, yet God was against him. He lived in pseudo-faith, and often this catches more those who are closer to religion. Each of us should think deeply whether we are continuing the journey or whether we need it.<\/p>\n
If longing to meet God is not ignited in our soul, it means the soul is dead (see Psalm 42:1\u20132). As long as we are in this life, we are in the position to make this journey. The time to travel is now. Now is the schedule when we can travel. Whoever repents, the benefit is for them.<\/p>\n
Let us see Lent as a journey\u2014not only Lent, but all life\u2014because in fact we are traveling even if some do not know it. Each of us is going toward something. \u201cIf we do not become familiar with God here,\u201d says Saint John Chrysostom, \u201cwe will not be familiar with Him in the next life either. Friendship with God begins here. The journey and eternal communion with God begins here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let us begin the journey toward God and think about the sacrifices of this journey. Let us think and understand as the Psalm says: \u201cTaste and see\u201d (Psalm 34:8). There is no joy greater than spiritual life. God will see us from the first moment we make the movement to return, and from the first moment He will give us something; from the first moment we will feel a kind of presence in our soul that will give us joy and strength to continue the journey.<\/p>\n
Our life is a journey toward God, as we emphasized, and let us never forget this.<\/p>\n
May He bless us to meet Him on the day of Pascha. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orthodox Christians will begin Great Lent for Easter tomorrow, from February 23 to April 12, 2026. On this occasion, Archbishop Joan shared a message with all believers, describing Lent as a journey toward God. Full message of Archbishop Joan (English translation) We constantly say that Lent is a journey. Not only Lent, but our very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":83055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,1803],"tags":[150,243,151],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n