Your Grace, beloved Fathers, brothers and sisters in the Lord,
Once again, with the will and grace of God, the Giver of all good things, we are entering Holy and Great Lent, the blessed period of fasting and repentance, of spiritual vigilance and journey with the Lord, as He approaches His voluntary Passion, so that we may reach the veneration of His glorious Resurrection and become worthy of our own passage from earthly things to “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Cor. 2:9).
In the early Church, Holy and Great Lent was a period of preparation for catechumens, whose baptism took place during the Divine Liturgy of Pascha. This connection with baptism is also preserved in the understanding and experience of Great Lent as the period par excellence of repentance, described as “a renewal of baptism,” “a second baptism,” “a covenant with God for a second life,” in other words, a renewal of the grace of baptism and a promise to God for the beginning of a new way of life. The services and hymns of this season associate the spiritual struggle of the faithful with the expectation of the Lord’s Pascha, whereby the forty-day fast radiates the fragrance of Paschal joy.
Holy and Great Lent is an opportunity to become conscious of the depth and richness of our faith as “a personal encounter with Christ.” It is rightly emphasized that Christianity is “extremely personal,” without this implying that it is “individualistic.” The faithful “encounter, recognize, and love one and the same Christ, Who alone revealed the true and perfect human person” (St. Nicholas Cabasilas). He invites all people—and each person individually—to salvation, so that the response of each may always be “grounded in the common faith” and, at the same time, be unique.
I prayerfully wish all of you in our God-protected Diocese of the USA, Canada, and Australia a blessed and salvific Holy and Great Lent 2026.
+Metropolitan Joseph
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