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The first week of Great Lent is a time of special prayer and strict abstinence. During the first four days—from Monday to Thursday—the Great Canon of Repentance of St. Andrew of Crete is read in nearly every Orthodox Church.

The great Canon of St Andrew, Bishop of Crete, is the longest canon in all of our services and is associated with the initial stages of the spiritual journey of great Lent. There is no other sacred hymn which compares with this monumental work, which St Andrew wrote for his personal meditations. Nothing else has its extensive typology and mystical explanations of the scripture, from both the Old and New Testaments. One can almost consider this hymn to be a “survey of the Old and New Testament”. It’s other distinguishing features are a spirit of mournful humility, hope in God, and complex and beautiful Trinitarian Doxologies and hymns to the Theotokos in each Ode.

St Andrew wrote the Canon to challenge the faithful spiritually. For Eastern Orthodox, all spiritual exercises are designed to heighten our perception of basic reality: Sin is much more serious than we think, and God’s forgiveness is much more vast than we think. Left to ourselves, we go around with Playskool impressions of what’s at stake. So the goal of all spiritual disciplines are to cultivate charmolypi — to use a Greek term coined by the 6th-century abbot of the monastery on Mt Sinai, St. John of the Ladder. Charmolypi means the kind of penitence that flips into joyous gratitude, “joy-making sorrow,” repentance shot through with gold.
There is a tone of awe and mystery that runs throughout its expression — a sense ofseriousness and urgency for the restoration from the old Adam to the new Adam based on the incarnation. The great Canon provides the faithful with the tools not only to approach God but more importantly, to unite with Him. Its main theme is: repentance, the return form sin or theunity of the cosmos and the human race – as one creation united in love – to its Creator. The great Canon invites the faithful to utilise all aspects of their existence including all their senses to communicate with their Creator, in order to live with Life itself. For this reason St Andrew’s Canon contains both anthropological and cosmological themes, which include:

How we should think about ourselves:

Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me release from my falls Mon:1.1

Desire to change – dialogue with the soul:

Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In the future refrain from you former brutishness, and offer to God tears of repentance Mon:1.2

Recognizing Reality:

The end is drawing near, my soul, is drawing near! But you neither care nor prepare. The time is growing short. Rise! The Judge is at the very doors. Like a dream, like a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle about in vain? Mon:4.2

How to pray – Laments and supplications to God:

Thou art the Good Shepherd; seek me, Thy lamb, and neglect no me who have gone astray Mon:3.5

Examples of righteousness and unrighteousness, for the purpose of emulation or avoidance:

Do not be a pillar of salt, my soul, by turning back; but let the example of the Sodomites frighten you, and take refuge up in Zoar. (Genesis 19:26) Thu Ode 3:5

I have reviewed all the people of the Old Testament as examples for you, my soul. Imitate the God-loving deeds of the righteous and shun the sins of the wicked. Tue Ode 8

Therefore the function and purpose of the great canon is to reveal sin to us and to lead us thus to repentance, and it reveals sin not by definitions and enumerations but by a deep mediation on the great biblical story which is indeed the story of sin, repentance and forgiveness. It indicates to us the revealed Biblical world-view of humanity, of its life, its goals, and its motivation. It helps us to see that sin is first of all the rejection of life as offering/sacrifice to God; in other words sin is the rejection of the divine orientation of life, sin is therefore the deviation of our love from its ultimate object and subject, the presence of God, God Himself. By offering us this deeper realization about ourselves and our life, the great canon restores in us the fundamental framework within which repentance again becomes possible, having now found the true dimension of our life by its guidance.

Source of information: https://orthochristian.com/60910.html