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| Source: smtbethpage.org/ |
To be sure, the extended fasts during Great Lent … are a time for turning inward through self-discipline and repentance to soften our heart, opening it for the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. … But we do not and cannot refashion our own lives in relation to God apart from our relationships with other people. On the very first Monday of Great Lent, we are enjoined by Isaiah (1:16–17): “Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” This injunction and warning is repeated in Isaiah 58:6–7, which is read on the Wednesday of the sixth week of Great Lent: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness … to let the oppressed go free, to share bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?”...
Great Lent, then, is a time in which we respond with humility and gratitude towards the compassion God shows to us and also aim to express that compassion in our dealings with others.
—Priest John D. Jones, Moved by Compassion: Exploring the Core of Orthodox Christian Life