Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) answers urgent questions about the upcoming fast.

– Vladyka, now people are already deprived of everyday joys, and fasting takes away even what little is. How can we fast in such conditions?

– Earthly life was given to man in order to achieve eternal salvation. And a lot doesn’t depend on us: when to be born, in what era, who will become our parents, where will our earthly fatherland be.

All this is given to us by God within the framework of His care for human, within the framework of God’s providence.

And our task is with all our being, with all our strength to cleanse our heart and make the soul capable of living in eternity.

Therefore, there is no need to complain about the difficult situation in which we find ourselves. When we feel good, we often forget about God and very rarely thank Him. And when some special experiences happen, difficulties, then we begin to look for the reason why this is happening.

The religious understands everything. He/she is focused on spiritual life. And spiritual life is always an internal struggle, always a desire to see ourselves in our true light, what we really are.

And having seen all our dirt, we must clean it with all possible means and tools. Including fasting.

It is wrong to think that, for example, during a crisis there is some kind of special fast, there are special abstinences. Another thing is that in a crisis, the situation itself forces us to think about the meaning of our life, we try to comprehend the essence of events and actions.

One should always fast in such a way as to receive spiritual benefit.

And spiritual benefit will come only when we learn humility, and not theoretically, but we feel our complete inability to achieve perfection on our own. And let’s be kinder to those people who are near, who are also not so easy. But who, perhaps, do not have the gracious help that we, the people of the Church.

Therefore, fasting is called upon through self-abasement, self-restraint to destroy and erase stupidity, as it is written in our liturgical books. Fasting is a way to achieve gentleness of the soul, which makes a person able to hear God and accept another person.

And this is our main task in the post. To love God again and regain the lost paradise.

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova