I greet all the children of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia on the Great Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. R emember, my dear ones, that as a bird is held up and flies through the air using two wings, so we can spiritually live and strive towards our eternal salvation with fasting and prayer.
Prayer leads to fasting, while fasting purifies prayer, makes it more.
We are all people, and as human beings we consist of the body, in which, as in its house, lives the soul. Fasting together with prayer address the needs of the whole man-his soul and, of course, his body. At first this prayer will be only in our minds, then, because of the mind's prayerful effort, suddenly, we know not how, this prayer passes into our hearts. It is possible that at this moment we may even weep and in this way we are baptized anew in the unseen font of our tears. Sincere repentance is a gift of God such that, although we may not have committed any severe fall into sin or evil deed, we still see ourselves in our true light, see how weak we are, how much we sin in the mind, in our feelings, and especially in our imagination.