As we prepare for Great Lent, our Church invites us to do some spiritual spring cleaning to help us focus our lives and our hearts on eternal things; to teach us how to sing not only with our voices, but with our very lives "We have seen the Light, the true Light..."

Through the services, the prayers, the spiritual disciplines, and the disruption of our "regularly scheduled" lives, the Church invites us to work together to become the men and women God created us to be, and She does this by giving us ways to polish the mirrors of our own lives to reflect the light of God's love everywhere.

First, the Church gives us the challenge of prayer. During Lent we will regularly pray the prayer of St. Ephraim where we will focus not on our neighbors' faults but our own and we will ask that we be given "the spirit of moderation, humility, patience, and love" so that we will see our own hearts made larger and our souls grow more mature to better reflect the true Face of Jesus to everyone in our daily lives.

Second, the Church gives us the challenge of fasting. Not only will we fast from certain foods on Wednesdays and Fridays like throughout the whole year, but during these Lenten days we will say goodbye to good things so that we will be able to appreciate them as gifts rather than entitlements. The Church calls us to fast during lent to overcome the temptation of forgetfulness as to what is to be the priority of our lives.

Finally, the Church gives us the challenge of almsgiving. What we own can come to own us if we don't learn to hold our possessions loosely in our hands. So, we are taught to focus on almsgiving at this time of year to build a wall of wisdom against the temptation of lazily trusting in anything other than God to provide for us what we truly need.

Passing through Last Judgment Sunday and then to Forgiveness Sunday and on into Great Lent, we as committed and purposeful Orthodox Christians are once again invited to take the wisdom of our faith seriously and break the back of the constant temptation to reduce our life-giving faith to a mere decoration to our lives. What a joy!

We are at Great Lent once again. Thank God! Kalh Tessarakosth!

Your servant,

Dn. Barnabas Powell

Additional Scripture Reading - Matthew 6:19-34 

NOTE: Dn Barnabus Powell is an Atlanta Metropolis graduating seminarian at Holy Cross Seminary. He will be ordained to the priesthood by His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta on March 7 at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Atlanta.  He is married to Connie (Demas) Powell. They have one daughter Alexandra.