{"id":272570,"date":"2020-03-03T12:27:51","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T10:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=272570"},"modified":"2020-03-03T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T10:28:15","slug":"patriarch-daniel-no-one-can-enter-lent-without-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/patriarch-daniel-no-one-can-enter-lent-without-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriarch Daniel: No one can enter Lent without forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo one can enter into fasting, as a spiritual struggle for the cleansing of sins and the lightening of the soul, without forgiveness,\u201d His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania explained in his homily at the Chapel of St. Gregory the Enlightener in the Patriarchal residence in Bucharest on the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In offering forgiveness, we better ourselves: \u201cForgiving others cultivates humility and the inner freedom of a man willing to live in the merciful love of God,\u201d the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch said March 1.<\/p>\n

Moreover, forgiveness means the crucifixion of our own selfishness, His Beatitude emphasized, and is a recognition that others ought not to be defined by their mistakes and bad deeds.<\/p>\n

According to the Sunday Gospel, the Patriarch explained, man\u2019s relationship with God is connected with his relationship with his fellow man. We forgive the mistakes of others in order to have peace and fellowship with them, but also to \u201cresemble the merciful and forgiving God.\u201d<\/p>\n

And besides forgiveness, fasting is another way to draw nearer to God.<\/p>\n

\u201cFasting is a giving of the self to God as gratitude for the gift of life and as a desire to sanctify life,\u201d Pat. Daniel preached. We also fast as a manifestation of the fact that we love God \u201cmore than the material gifts we consume.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as the Holy Fathers teach, fasting is closely related to and supports prayer: \u201cFasting supports the prayer of the faithful man who considers his connection with God to be the centre, light, and food of his soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following this, \u201che who fasts but does not pray, does not gather spiritual light in the soul, but performs only a biological and psychological exercise, hygienically or aesthetically motivated,\u201d the Romanian primate explained.<\/p>\n

And during Great Lent, we are especially called to acknowledge and confess our sins, \u201cjudging ourselves in the Mystery of Confession, to receive forgiveness of sins and to share in the holy, humble, and merciful love of Christ, given to us in the Holy Eucharist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photography courtesy of the Basilica.ro<\/strong><\/em><\/span> Archive<\/p>\n

English article by OrthoChristian<\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter: @BasilicaNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo one can enter into fasting, as a spiritual struggle for the cleansing of sins and the lightening of the soul, without forgiveness,\u201d His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania explained in his homily at the Chapel of St. Gregory the Enlightener in the Patriarchal residence in Bucharest on the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":272381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4894,22547,10386,66,53],"class_list":["post-272570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homilies","tag-forgiveness","tag-great-lent-2020","tag-orthodox-news","tag-patriarch-daniel","tag-romanian-orthodox-church"],"better_featured_image":{"id":272381,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1900,"height":1267,"file":"2020\/03\/Patriarhul-Daniel.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Patriarhul-Daniel-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Patriarhul-Daniel-360x360.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"Patriarhul-Daniel-890x593.jpg","width":890,"height":593,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Patriarhul-Daniel-890x593.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Patriarhul-Daniel-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Patriarhul-Daniel-1024x683.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":272570,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Patriarhul-Daniel.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272570\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=272570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272570\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272381\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=272570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=272570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=272570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}