The Holy Lent Message 2025 of His Beatitude Patriarch John X
Shared from the Facebook page of the Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East for the Greek Orthodox.
You can find below the Holy Lent message for the year 2025, issued by His Beatitude Patriarch John X, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East for the Greek Orthodox and President of the Middle East Council of Churches for the Orthodox family, on Saturday, February 22, 2025.
By the mercy of God Almighty
John X
the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East
To
My brethren, the pastors of the Holy Church of Antioch
And my sons and daughters wherever they are across this Apostolic See
Dear spiritual brethren and children,
During Great Lent, each of us invokes the Lord of Salvation, the Master of Life and Death, and cries to Him from the depths of our soul: Lord, have mercy!
During Great and Holy Lent, the soul goes to the Bridegroom, to the heavenly Bridegroom, with whom it rises from the dead and seeks the dawn of resurrection. In Great Lent, the soul accompanies its Bridegroom, Christ our God. It accompanies Him and calls upon Him as it treads the path of repentance, a path crowned with suffering but adorned with the resurrection from an empty tomb.
From the Sundays of preparation, this soul draws inspiration for its journey of repentance. On the threshold of Great Lent, it invokes Christ, worships, and contemplates with Him, starting tomorrow on Meat Fare Sunday, the fate of those who did neither show mercy nor have compassion on their neighbor. It also contemplates the share of those who showed mercy. It converses with the Bridegroom and contemplates with Him on the Sunday of Forgiveness, the paradise lost by humanity with Adam, the first created.
With the start of Lent, the soul contemplates the beauty and splendor of the Orthodoxy on the Sunday of the veneration of icons, that transports us from today’s world to eternity whose light we perceive on the faces of the saints. On the second Sunday, this soul proceeds to learning about honoring the saints, who have received their grace and holiness from the Holy One. On the third Sunday, in the middle of the journey, this soul returns to contemplate the Wood of the Cross and the One Who was hanged on it out of love for humankind that has forsaken Him, but which He never forsook. With John Climacus, the soul dwells on the path of virtues and walks along to meet the experience of Mary of Egypt. There, it learns with Mary that repentance is the foundation, first and last of all, in the journey of Great Lent, that is, the journey of repentance.
All this culminates in the soul’s encounter with her Christ Bridegroom; she receives Him as He enters the heavenly Jerusalem through her and together with her. It spreads for Him the branches of the soul and enters with Him into His salvific sufferings. It invokes Him in His funeral as Christ the Life Who tramples death, and after that, as the Light and the Lord Who is Risen from the dead, bestowing life to those in the tomb.
This is the journey of the Church and this is her guide for the soul of each one of us to walk in the company of this heavenly Bridegroom. Great Lent is a journey of repentance and a journey of mercy that translates into actions.
We raise our prayers in these blessed days and ask the Lord of Mercy and the God of compassion to send His compassion to the whole world and bless everyone, perpetuating in the hearts His good hope and implanting in the souls the balm of His divine consolation. May He embed the human being with some of His forbearance and radiance. May He calm with the power of His silence the darkness of this world that is raging with wars, kidnapping, boiling anger, and takfirism. We ask Him to embrace our departed souls into His holy bosom, to bestow upon them the light of His mercy, and to reassure souls and households.
For He is the Blessed and Glorified One forever and ever, Amen.
Damascus, February 22, 2025
This message was published on the Facebook page of the Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East for the Greek Orthodox.