Lent 2008

The Greek Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom - Saturday 1 March 2008 (Meatfare Saturday)LENT IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITIONJames HeywoodWhat are you giving up for Lent? Chocolate? That?s a favourite. Or ?Coffee ? I drink far too much of it and I need to cut down. It can be bad for the heart you know.??Giving up? something like chocolate perhaps shows a vestigial consciousness of the fact that Lent is historically a fast, but no more than vestigial. Giving up coffee for the sake of your health offers a hint of Lent as a time for getting your life in better order, but the reason is purely material and bears no relation to Christianity.Anyway, what?s the point of all this giving-up? It seems such a gloomy way to spend six weeks of springtime, when the earth is becoming beautiful again and new life is appearing all round us. Why give things up? Why be gloomy?As far as the Orthodox understanding goes, there?s nothing gloomy about Lent. Orthodox Lent is full of joy. I?m not saying that because I read it in the Fathers. It?s my own experience. For one thing, Lent is full of joyful occasions. Each Sunday of Lent brings a new celebration, first of the Triumph of Orthodoxy and the restoration of the holy icons to our churches, next of St Gregory Palamas who taught of the remarkable approach to God through hesychasm, then the Veneration of the Precious Cross, followed by St John Climacus, author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, and finally St Mary of Egypt the very paragon of repentance.On weekdays, there is the celebration of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, an immensely solemn service which nonetheless leaves you elated.Then, on the first four Friday evenings (in the Greek use) we have the Salutations. These are the four parts of the great Akathistos Hymn in honour of the All-Holy Theotokos, sung within Small Compline. On the fifth Friday evening, we sing the entire hymn in what is quite a long service. As well as the Akathistos itself, these services include the wonderful kontakion, , To You My Champion, written after God?s Mother saved the City of Constantinople from conquest by the Arabs ? the hymn that I like to think of as the national anthem of the Orthodox. These celebrations of our All-Holy Lady are occasions of abundant colour and joy.Somewhere in the middle of all this, on 25 March comes one of the great feasts of the year, the Annunciation. And, of course, overarching it all is the anticipation of Easter and our annual re-experience of the Glorious Resurrection of our Saviour in that night which is ?brighter than the day?. How can we possibly be gloomy?Wait a minute! We haven?t said anything about giving things up. Have we forgotten that Lent is a fast?No. Of course not! Lent is definitely a fast. The Great Fast. , the Great Forty Days. The longest and the strictest fast of the year. If you follow the Orthodox Church?s directions fully, you will give up so many things that from Clean Monday (10 March this year) till Great Saturday (26 April) your diet will almost match that of the vegans. You will eschew all meat, all fish, all dairy products (eggs, milk, butter, cheese, yoghurt and Cornish clotted cream!), all alcohol and all oil. Because the lack of juicy meat, milk and oil can leave the food tasting somewhat dry, this diet is known by the old Greek word, xerophagy ? dry eating.There are some moister days. Wine and oil are allowed on all the Saturdays and Sundays. (No Saturday or Sunday of the year is a full fast except Great Saturday.) And on the feasts of the Annunciation and the Entry of our Saviour into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, fish is allowed along with wine and oil.?So you do give things up!? you say. Yes, we do give things up ? plenty of them. But strangely, perhaps, we don?t think of it like that. The idea of giving ?something? up for Lent is the outcome of several centuries of relaxation of fasting disciplines in the western Church. An amusing illustration of this is found in the book, ?Eminent Victorians?, by the 19th-century author, Lytton Strachey, where he wrote of the Roman Catholic Cardinal Wiseman, ?He loved a good table. Some of Newman?s [Cardinal Newman?s] disciples were astonished and grieved that he sat down to four courses of fish during Lent. ?I am sorry to say,? remarked one of them afterwards, ?that there is a lobster salad side to the Cardinal?.?Four courses of fish!Yes, we give up lots of things, as we said earlier. But there?s more to it than that. Indeed, speaking for myself, I find the following of the dietary rules the easiest part of the fast. The other parts are far more difficult. ?I speak not,? as St John Chrysostom says, ?of such a fast as most persons keep, but of real fasting; not merely an abstinence from meats, but from sins too.? St John goes on:?Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works!If you see a poor man, take pity on him!If you see an enemy, be reconciled to him!If you see a friend gaining honour, envy him not!If you see a handsome woman, pass her by!For let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies.Let the hands fast, by being pure from rapine and avarice.Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run to the unlawful spectacles.Let the eyes fast, being taught never to fix themselves rudely upon handsome faces, or to busy themselves with strange beauties. ? Do you avoid eating flesh? Feed not upon lasciviousness by means of the eyes.Let the ear fast also. The fasting of the ear consists in refusing to receive evil speakings and calumnies. ?You shall not receive a false report,? it is said.?The change of diet is not enough. We must practise every virtue with more effort than before: give alms, love our enemies, avoid envy, greed, lechery and slander, and eschew entertainments that are not spiritually edifying. Even married couples are encouraged to abstain from sexual intercourse during the Great Fast. It?s a tall order, but this is the Orthodox frame of reference. I know an Orthodox priest who locks his family?s television away in a cupboard at the beginning of Lent and only brings it out again after Easter.But these changes in our conduct of our lives don?t make us gloomy, for especially as the days move on and the abstinence begins to affect our bodies and our spirits, and we attend those wonderful Lenten services, the joy grows in our hearts. And that is as it should be, for as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (of blessed memory) wrote, ?Unless we understand this quality of joy in Lent, we make of it a monstrous caricature, a time when in God?s own name we make our life a misery.?Very well, then, but what?s it all for, all this effort and rejoicing?Continued ... Click here vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvt perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit.Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Fellowship of Saint Alban & Saint Sergius London Branch - Autumn 2008

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