Română
Fr. George Kapsanis, former abbot of the Monastery of Gregoriou (Mount Athos) talks about the Great Lent as the tithe of the year.
Fr. George:
“With the help of God and the protection of the Mother of God we have passed the blessed period of the first three days of Lent, each one according to his/her capacity.
One in complete fast and the other in a partial fast.
It was truly a blessed period of peace, we all enjoyed it, and it gave us the opportunity to pray, but also to reconsider our struggle and our lives, our deeds, to ask the forgiveness of God for all our things that have saddened God up until today and make the decision to struggle even more in the next days of the Great Lent.
This Lent should be for all of us at least a period of spiritual maturation! That it may bear a spiritual fruit!
And as the Holy Fathers say, Great Lent is the tithe of the year.
The tithe that we offer to God as a sacrifice, as a struggle, as an ascesis, as a fasting period, as a prayer.
For the Lord commanded in the Old Testament that man should give away his tithe to church and charities.
We have the tithe not only as mercy and worship, but also as a spiritual sacrifice. And to offer our spiritual fruits as gifts to God.
And again, the Holy Fathers speak so beautiful… that the first three days of Lent constitute the tithe of the Lent.
So the offering of the first three days was already the tithe of the Lent, and the entire Lent to be the tithe of the year.
I pray with humility that the grace of God help us all to cross the great sea of the Holy Lent, with humility, with a fighting spirit, with prayer and the control of the tongue.
We must and we can do this fight! It is the fight that will help us to reach spiritual maturation.
The more we speak, the less the soul is cleansed.
The less we talk, the more the soul is cleansed starts to desire God.
May God help us in this fight to have warriors and victorious fathers!”
