Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch
Office of the Presiding Bishop
A Pastoral Letter for the Great and Holy Fast ✠
To the beloved clergy and faithful of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, in the communion of the Holy Spirit.
As we enter once more into the sacred season of the Great Fast, the Church leads us again into the desert. Lent is not merely a recollection of our Lord’s forty days in the wilderness; it is an invitation to follow Him there. It is a summons to step beyond the surface of religious observance and to descend into the deeper chambers of the heart, where Christ awaits us in silence.
Traditionally, this season has been marked by sacrifice. The faithful abstain from certain foods, pleasures, and comforts. These practices are good and time-honored. They remind us that we are not slaves to appetite, and they awaken within us a longing for God that is often dulled by excess. Yet we must ask ourselves, with sobriety and courage: if, when Easter dawns, we simply resume all that we have set aside—unchanged in heart, untransfigured in mind—have we truly kept Lent?
If our fasting is only a temporary interruption, a brief spiritual exercise after which life continues as before, then we have reduced the Fast to a ritual gesture. There may be discipline, but there is no enduring metanoia. There may be effort, but no transformation. We have given something up for a time, only to take it back unchanged—and to remain unchanged ourselves.
But Lent calls us to more.
The Greek fathers speak of metanoia not as regret alone, but as a change of mind so profound that it becomes a change of being. In our mystical Christian tradition, repentance is not merely moral correction; it is ontological reorientation. It is the gradual restoration of the divine likeness within us. It is the turning of the whole person—mind, heart, and body—toward the uncreated Light.
Therefore, the sacrifices of Lent must be more than symbolic. They must become sacramental—outward signs that effect an inward grace. When we fast from excess, we are to cultivate hunger for righteousness. When we relinquish distraction, we are to take up stillness. When we abstain from harsh words, we are to practice blessing. When we loosen our attachment to possessions, we are to bind ourselves more closely to mercy and almsgiving.
To give something up without taking something on leaves a vacuum. But the Christian life knows no emptiness; it knows only exchange. We lay aside the old self to be clothed with Christ. We relinquish lesser goods to receive the greater Good. The Fast is not subtraction alone, it is divine exchange, participation in the kenosis of the Lord, who empties us only to fill us with Himself.
In this sacred season, I urge each of you—clergy and faithful alike—to discern not only what you will surrender, but what you will embrace. If you fast from indulgence, take on intentional prayer. If you abstain from noise, take on contemplation of the Word. If you reduce worldly entertainments, take on works of mercy. Let every renunciation open a space that grace may occupy.
For ours is a mystical faith. Christianity is not adherence to an ethical system alone, nor merely fidelity to external observances. It is participation in the divine life. It is communion with the living Christ. The disciplines of Lent are not ends in themselves; they are thresholds. Through them we pass from distraction into recollection, from fragmentation into integration, from self-centeredness into the luminous freedom of the children of God.
The desert into which we go is not barren. It is the place of encounter. There, stripped of illusions, we learn again that “God alone suffices.” There, the heart—long divided—begins to unify around the one necessary thing. There, Christ speaks not in spectacle but in stillness.
Brothers and sisters, let this Lent be different. Let it be durable. Let it mark not a temporary pause but a decisive turn. Choose one attachment that clouds your freedom in Christ, and relinquish it not merely for forty days, but as a step toward lasting liberty. Choose one holy practice that embodies the person you are called to become, and begin it now—not as an experiment, but as a new way of life.
Then, when Easter comes, you will not simply resume what was. You will rise changed. And the Alleluia you sing will not be the return of permitted pleasures, but the song of a heart that has tasted transformation.
May the Holy Spirit, who leads the Church through every wilderness into resurrection, grant you courage for the Fast, perseverance in prayer, and joy in the hidden work of grace. And may the Mother of God, who pondered all things in her heart, teach us the silence in which Christ is formed within us.
With paternal love in the Lord,
✠ Mark Elliott Newman
Presiding Bishop
Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch
Given in the Season of the Great Fast – 2026
“Reclaiming the Original Blessing”
Church of Antioch Web Site www.churchofantioch.org
Church Central email antioch1@swcp.com