Lenten Reflection - Day 2 of the Great Lent

Walking as Children of Light – Ephesians 4:32–5:4, 15–21

“Be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (5:1–2)

Yesterday we followed Christ into the wilderness and heard His threefold “No” to the tempter. Today St. Paul sets before us the “Yes” that must follow — the shape of the life to which the fast is meant to lead us. If Day 1 was about combat, Day 2 is about communion. If the wilderness strips away what is false, this passage from Ephesians tells us what is to be built up in its place.

For the Great Lent is not only a turning from sin; it is a turning toward a whole way of being — tender, forgiving, luminous, wise, and saturated with thanksgiving. Paul does not merely give us a list of rules. He gives us a portrait of the human person restored in Christ, and he grounds every imperative in the self-offering love of God.

Forgiveness: The First Fast

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” (4:32)

The Lenten journey begins not in the prayer corner alone, but in the space between ourselves and our neighbour. Before we can stand before God in fasting and vigil, we must first be reconciled to one another. St. John Chrysostom, commenting on this verse, insists that kindness and tender-heartedness are not optional adornments of the Christian life but its very substance. He teaches that nothing so closely imitates God as the readiness to forgive, and that the one who bears a grudge while fasting offers God a gift with one hand while striking his brother with the other.¹

This is the often-overlooked asceticism of the Great Lent: the fast of the tongue from harsh speech, of the memory from nursing grievances, of the heart from the cold satisfaction of withholding mercy. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that the merciful person is the physician of his own soul, driving the darkness of passion from within.² Forgiveness is not weakness; it is the most strenuous act of spiritual strength, because it requires us to absorb a debt rather than demand its repayment — which is precisely what Christ did on the Cross.

As you begin this second day of the fast, ask yourself: Is there someone I have not forgiven? Is there a wound I am tending rather than surrendering to God? The fast of the stomach is barren if the heart remains gorged on resentment.

Imitating God as Beloved Children

“Be imitators of God as beloved children.” (5:1)

Here is the audacity of the Christian calling. Paul does not say “obey God” or even “serve God” — he says imitate Him. The Greek word is mimētai (μιμηταί), from which we derive “mimic.” We are to pattern our lives on the very life of God.

But how does a creature imitate the Creator? The Fathers teach that we imitate God not by attempting divine power but by participating in divine love — a theme St. Cyril of Alexandria develops throughout his writings on the Incarnation and our union with Christ.³ God’s nature is self-giving; therefore the one who gives of himself freely — in forgiveness, in mercy, in sacrifice — is the one who most closely resembles the Father. This is the Orthodox understanding of theosis: not that we become God in essence, but that by grace we come to share in the divine qualities of love, holiness, and life.

And notice that Paul calls us beloved children, not servants or subjects. The imitation he calls for is not the anxious mimicry of a slave before a master, but the natural resemblance of a child who has grown up watching the Father. A child does not study how to walk like his father; he simply walks with his father, day after day, and the likeness emerges. This is what the Great Lent is for: to walk with the Father in prayer, fasting, and mercy so closely and for so long that His character is impressed upon ours.

From Coarseness to Thanksgiving

“But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” (5:3–4)

Paul now turns from the light to what must be left behind in the darkness. The contrast is stark: from the sweet aroma of self-offering love to the stench of impurity, greed, and degraded speech. And he names these not as mere moral failings but as things unfitting for saints — which is what the baptised are. The standard is not respectability but holiness.

Notice that Paul places coarse and foolish speech alongside fornication and covetousness. The Fathers consistently teach that the tongue is the rudder of the soul. St. John Climacus, in The Ladder of Divine Ascent⁴, devotes entire steps to the sins of speech — talkativeness, falsehood, slander, and impure jesting — precisely because words both reveal and shape the interior condition of the heart. What we say is what we are becoming.

And the remedy Paul offers is striking: not silence alone, but thanksgiving (eucharistia). The mouth that is emptied of coarseness is to be filled with gratitude. This is the deepest logic of the Lenten fast: we do not simply stop eating, stop speaking, stop consuming. We replace lesser loves with greater ones. The mouth that fasts from food is freed for prayer. The tongue that fasts from gossip is freed for praise. The heart that fasts from covetousness is freed for eucharistia — that giving of thanks which is the fundamental posture of the creature before the Creator.

Redeeming the Time

“See then that you walk carefully, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (5:15-16)

Redeeming the time. The Greek is exagorazomenoi ton kairon — literally “buying back the opportune moment.” Time is not neutral. It is either spent or redeemed, wasted or sanctified. The Great Lent is the Church’s supreme act of redeeming the time: setting apart forty days from the ordinary flow of life and consecrating them to repentance, prayer, and transformation. Every hour of the fast is a kairos, an opportune moment for an act of mercy, a prayer, a turning of the heart that might otherwise be lost forever.

St. Basil the Great teaches that the wise person is the one who understands the brevity and preciousness of life and therefore orders each day with attention to eternity.⁵ Foolishness, in the biblical sense, is not stupidity but the refusal to live in light of ultimate realities. The fool says “there is no God” — not necessarily with his lips, but with the way he spends his hours, as though this world were all there is.

The Lenten fast is a school of wisdom. It teaches us to number our days. It interrupts the mindless rhythm of consumption and distraction and asks: What are you doing with the time God has given you? Every hour of the Great Lent is a kairos — an opportune moment for repentance, for prayer, for an act of mercy that might otherwise have been lost forever.

Here is the climax of the passage, and it is breathtaking in its vision. Paul contrasts being “drunk with wine” — which leads to wastefulness — with being “filled with the Spirit.” The one is a false fullness that empties the soul; the other is the true fullness that overflows in praise. And the mark of the Spirit-filled life is not ecstatic phenomena but communal worship: psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and ceaseless thanksgiving.

St. Athanasius, in his famous Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, teaches that the Psalter is given to us as a mirror of the soul.⁶ When we sing the psalms, we do not merely recite ancient words; we find our own spiritual condition reflected back to us — our grief, our joy, our repentance, our longing for God. The psalms teach us the language of the heart. They give us words when our own words fail.

This is why the Orthodox Lenten tradition is so deeply rooted in psalmody. The Psalter is read through repeatedly during the Great Lent. The penitential psalms — especially Psalms 51, 130, and 143 — become the daily bread of the fasting Christian. Paul’s exhortation here is not merely to private devotion but to the shared life of the Body. We sing to one another. The Lenten journey is not solitary. Even the hermit in his cell is joined to the whole Church through the common prayer of the Psalter.

The passage ends where all true Christian life ends: “giving thanks always for all things” (5:20) and “submitting to one another in the fear of God” (5:21). Thanksgiving and mutual humility — the twin fruits of a heart that has learned to fast not only from food, but from self.

For Our Journey Today

Forgive — Before the sun sets, bring to mind anyone against whom you hold resentment, and consciously release the debt to God. You cannot fast with a clenched fist.

Give thanks — Replace every complaint with a conscious act of thanksgiving. Let eucharistia fill the space that fasting creates.

Sing — Let a psalm accompany you through the day. Begin with Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Yourself for us as an offering of sweet aroma to the Father, teach us to walk as children of light. Purify our speech, soften our hearts, and kindle in us the fire of unceasing thanksgiving. Grant that this holy fast may bear the fruit of tenderness, wisdom, and mutual love. By the prayers of the Theotokos, the holy Apostle Paul, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 17 on the Epistle to the Ephesians, §§1–2 (NPNF I/13) ↩︎
St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2011) ↩︎
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Ephesians (fragments; cf. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Ephesians, IVP Academic, 1999) ↩︎
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Steps 10–12 (Paulist Press, 1982) ↩︎
St. Basil the Great, Homilies on the Hexaemeron, II, VI (NPNF II/8) ↩︎
St. Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms (Paulist Press, 1980) ↩︎

Lenten Reflection – Day 2 of the Great Lent