The Patriarch of Romania Celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Archiepiscopal Cathedral of Buzău

On 17 March 2013, the Romanian Orthodox Church observed the Sunday of Adam’s banishment from the Garden of Eden. The evangelical pericope of Saint Evangelist Matthew, chapter 6:14-21, was read during the Divine Liturgy.

During the sermon delivered in the chapel of the Patriarchal Residence of Saint Gregory the Enlightener, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel explained the teaching of today’s Gospel, referring to the period of the Holy Easter.

The fasting period is a time of greater rapprochement to God, of intensification of our spiritual relationship with God, of spiritual growing in our relationship of vivid faith and humble love for God, His Beatitude showed, emphasising the central teaching of the evangelical pericope of the day.

“The Gospel that the Church scheduled for the 4th Sunday of the Triode named the Sunday of Adam’s banishment from the Garden of Eden is a text short but full of spiritual meaning useful for the fasting period that we begin, for the clergy and people as well; the entire Church begins the fasting period. Jesus Christ, our Lord, speaks first of all of the importance of our forgiving the mistakes of our fellow beings so that God should forgive our mistakes too. Then, the Saviour speaks about the way of fasting, saying that people must not be sad because they fast, because fasting should bring natural joy, with no sad faces, or trying to be appreciated by the people because we are fasting. In the third part of the evangelical text of the day the Saviour speaks about treasures. What sort of treasures do we acquire in our lifetime? Are they temporary material treasures, unstable and always in danger to lose their value, or safe permanent treasures, the spiritual treasures gathered in the soul and heart, the only safe treasures that we take with us in Heaven?”, His Beatitude said.

Merciful love is stronger than sin

His Beatitude has also spoken about the final purpose of this fasting period, namely getting merciful love which makes us resemble the merciful God: “The Gospel calls us to begin this period of the Lent through the forgiveness granted to our fellow beings and through the forgiveness got from them, and so, man makes for the Christ Crucified and Resurrected, who forgave the mistakes of those who crucified Him and showed that merciful love is stronger than sin, than violence, than any form of degrading the human being. Thus, merciful love is the main purpose of all spiritual efforts during the Lent. The final purpose of this period of spiritual fight is reaching the merciful love which makes us resemble the merciful God”.

Every human is free to the extent to which he can love God and his fellow beings

The Patriarch of Romania has also spoken about the importance of reaching merciful, generous, and forgiving love.

“Jesus Christ, our Lord, calls us to gather the treasure of the merciful love in our souls, generous and forgiving, which does not differ only due to simple desire, but implies much effort, forgetting about one’s own will and doing the will of God in our life. As father Petroniu Tănase from Prodromu Romanian skete of Mount Athos remarked, the effort is not a simple exercise of ascetics, but first of all giving up one’s own will in order to fulfil the will of God in our life, getting rid of the selfish will and raising it to a high spiritual level of the desire to obey and love God and our fellow beings, so that only the man with a will similar to that of God is truly free because he can love. Every human is free to the extent to which he can love God and his fellow beings”, His Beatitude said.

Today’s Gospel presents us the complete concise climbing programme to the Resurrection, the preparation for the Holy Easter, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel said showing that this climbing is made up of two aspects: the resurrection of the soul from the death of the sin and feeling the joy of the Holy Easter as a foretaste ever since the Lent.

Fasting not accompanied by prayer is not spiritual joy

At the same time, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church showed that fasting represents not only a restrain from food, but also from sins.

“It is the fasting of the whole being, not only material, but also spiritual. This means our changing from humans used to a sinful way of living into people who reach the thought in Christ through restrain, prayer, mercy, repentance, using the words and deeds as manifestations of the presence of the merciful pious love of Christ in our life. Fasting is not starvation, but a change of the food making the spiritual food a priority instead of the material one. Fasting not accompanied by prayer is not a spiritual work, but an exercise to cultivate the body aesthetically or from a hygienic and medical point of view. Why that? It is because prayer is the main food of the person who is fasting. Whoever retrains from the material things must increase prayer and intensify spiritual food reading the Holy Scriptures, confessing and receiving the Holy Communion more often as well as making more merciful deeds”, His Beatitude also said. The Patriarch of Romania showed that the 40 days fasting in the desert and rejecting the three temptations by Christ, our Lord, has completely healed the behaviour of the disobedient, not fasting and not repented Adam.

“Obedience to God and restrain are things that the Saviour Himself shows us during the 40 days fasting in the desert when He rejected the three temptations: greed of consuming material things, greed to rule over the world and greed of vain glory, of selfish self-affirmation of the man isolated from God and often against his fellow beings. While rejecting all these temptations Christ, our Lord, heals the behaviour of the disobedient Adam, who never fasted and repented. This is why this Sunday, when Adam was banished from the Garden of Eden, Christ speaks about the need to gather spiritual treasures in our soul; this Sunday of Adam’s banishment from the Garden of Eden because he has not fasted urges us to spiritual climbing to recuperate the Eden, for going back to the Paradise”, His Beatitude said.

At the same time, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel showed that fasting is the expression of our love for God, not binding but an offer of man’s love for God.

“In Orthodoxy fasting is not an external obligation imposed, not a formality, a binding imperative, but an offer of man’s love for God. Fasting is a manifestation of our love for God. How is that? It is because we manifest more love for God-the-Giver than the desire to consume the material gifts He has given us to live our biological life. In other words, fasting is the expression of our love for God and whoever understands that fasting is devotion to God to fill our soul more with the merciful love of God does not feel the difficulty of fasting. Therefore, fasting means gathering treasures of grace from God, of the love of Christ in our soul”, the Patriarch of Romania said.

On the first Sunday of the Lent, the Orthodox Church will celebrate the Orthodoxy Sunday. This one was celebrated for the first time on 11 March 843, on the first Sunday of the Lent.

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