After the forty days of Great Lent we enter into a new forty-day period, but of an absolutely different nature. Then we mourned over our sins and confessed our weaknesses, humbling ourselves with fasting and abstinence. In everything we were as ones guilty, begging for mercy and the remission of sins.
The new forty-day period, beginning with the radiant Resurrection of Jesus Christ, has put us in this new bright state of a Christian freed from condemnation, resurrected for the new holy life, and confident in the everlasting blessedness granted to him in eternity.
There we saw a model for us in our Lord: How, entering into the work of saving the human race, He spent forty days in the strictest fasting, in solitary prayer, and in the struggle against the invisible enemy.
Here we see the same Lord appearing to His disciples for forty days, but we see Him glorified, victorious, and triumphant over all enemies. These repeated appearances of the Lord to His disciples after His Resurrection are so comforting to us. All of them testify to the Lord’s very great love for those who believe in Him.
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