Preface

The greatest, by far the most important, celebration of the christian year is, of course, the paschal triduum. This solemn three-day festival is itself preceded by the Great Fast, the lenten period wherein the church presents us with the opportunity for further spiritual growth and understanding. The forty days draws each believer to a renewed nourishment of faith through the practices of the lenten season. Sincerity for christians committed to the Lord and the kingdom is underlined as crucial to this journey we make toward greater growth and development as christians. We are confronted once more by the questions of who God is and what is the nature and quality of our ongoing relationship with him. It is, then, a time of serious meditation and reflection, as well as an intense time for carrying out all the corrections necessary to increase our life in the spirit, to facilitate this growth.

The whole of this period is exemplified for us, first and foremost, in the person of Jesus Christ himself. From the moment of his testing in the desert to his crucifixion and death, his life prompts us to greater effort in seeking God and the establishment of his kingdom within our individual souls first, and then, in the community. He is, of course, the ultimate example leading us toward more abundant life, for he manifests his love for us in every aspect of his life. The whole message, then, of the lenten season is that we must, in fact, put on Christ. There is no room here for equivocation. It is simply a matter of perceiving the reality, coming to understand what it really involves, and engaging all the means at our disposal to bring it about.

Here, we might note that many seem to misunderstand the meaning of putting on Christ. The loss or obliteration of our personalities is certainly not what this is about, nor does it involve some sort of affected religiosity. The basic shape of our character remains stable, but the whole of our person is still somehow reformed, refined, and integrated. As we grow in this process, a transformation of our whole reality gradually comes about and the moral and spiritual quality of our growth in Christ is clearly visible to those who really know us. There is not the slightest hint of religious fanaticism present here, nor does our behavior smack of any kind of showing off. It is clear -- to us, first of all, -- that we have accorded God his proper place in our lives; we no longer think of him simply accidentally, as an aside. We become more and more conscious of being in his presence, though in no way does this distract us from the necessary concerns of life.

This consciousness is something that grows in its own quiet way. Our being good christians, good human beings has nothing exaggerated or artificial about it. Therefore, our religious practice, if and when visible to others, does not repel them or cause them embarrassment, for it is something totally part of us. It is not something that we try in any way to impose on others. We are still who we were, gregarious perhaps and full of fun, but there is something else about us now that the observant eye can discern. Indeed, any exterior changes that are manifest in our person have come about only because of the deep-seated interior conversion that we have undergone, though this conversion has not been anything dramatic. At the core of our being, where we are who we are -- this is where the new person has been born.

Putting on Christ, then, is what great lent is about. It is not about some sort of competitiveness, whether with others or ourselves. It is not a contest to stand out among fellow believers. All the practices of the period are simply means to the end of putting on Christ. The entire lenten period incites us to rise up from our lethargy, to do something mature and adult about all that we have learned and are learning about being christians. It urges us to put all this into an intense and living practice. It is not sufficient simply to be present at the services physically, while our minds and hearts are elsewhere. It is not sufficient to mouth prayers without entering into them in the deepest manner to make them part of our very being. It incites us to stop being mere believers and to be believers in the most radical sense, believers who live their faith. This is, of course, the call sent out to each of us and to which we must each respond as individuals. Without this response of the individual, there cannot be community response. And yet, the individual is called to respond personally within the context of the believing community.

And what are the methods that the church uses in calling us to this radical change of our lives?

The first, traditional, practice is fasting. Fasting from food and drink has always been a significant aspect of religious practice in all religions of any seriousness. The physical abstinence from food certainly induces in the very chemistry of life a severe disruption of the ordinary, a kind of violence that is not part of our normal everyday routine. This, in turn, jolts us into waking up, into finally becoming conscious in more than a simply biological way. It is the violent, says Jesus, who bear away the kingdom of heaven, and this ascetic practice of lessening our intake of food and drink is a sure way of enabling us to take the kingdom by force, for it brings the body, first of all, into obedience to the spirit. Still, fasting is not something that should be allowed to impair our health, much less destroy our physical lives. All fasting has to be done in moderation, determined by wisdom. Exaggerated practices are to be assiduously avoided, for lent is not a call to irrationality, much less an invitation to ruin our health, physical or mental. Nor are we called to competition with others. Lent is not an exercise in pride or self-satisfaction! As a matter of fact, the whole spiritual life calls us to the eminent and correct use of our reason.

Fasting, of course, is both formal and informal. To begin with, the church presents us with a pattern for daily fasting. This is observed publicly by all who take the lenten period seriously, according to the traditions of the local church and insofar as their overall health permits. But there are other patterns of physical fasting, i.e., when each of us personally, and in the secrecy of our own personal, private world, practice small but meaningful acts of self-denial from food and drink. All of which is geared to heightening the control we have over our entire selves.

Fasting is, then, a conspicuous feature of the lenten topography. But it is not the only feature. For fasting itself can be understood in more ways than the physical, than the simple and literal abstention from food and drink. We are positively directed to other kinds of fasting. The first such other form of fasting is the authentic change of mind called repentance, the "queen of virtues." Here is the cornerstone, the first change that must take place in us. Repentance is a process, a dynamism that is ongoing throughout our life. By repentance, we are brought face to face with formerly unsuspected aspects of everything. We are called to change our minds and our ways of acting with reference to everything we think and do. It is indeed the queen of virtues, for it holds the key to the development of all the other virtues. It was the first invitation of Jesus: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!

We are further called to self-control and moderation on a variety of other levels, both physical and spiritual, both external and internal. Included in fasting is the control of the mind, of learning how to exercise greater and greater mastery of one's thoughts as well as actions. This latter form of self-denial, the refusal to allow the mind to wander wherever it pleases, the control of one's thoughts, is extremely necessary to growth in the spiritual life. It is something that we all find lacking in ourselves though it is a crucial lynchpin in building an authentic inner life, because it is the key to learning discretion and attaining emotional maturation. Self-control and self-denial in all forms, then, are the domain of fasting.

A further physical practice employed during the days of lent is the prostration (in Greek, metánia; in Slavonic, poklón). These extreme bows whereby one prostrates to the floor are another method of bringing the body under control. If we have never exercised sufficient control over the body, we find it extremely difficult to exercise the control required for these prostrations. This is one of the costs of having consumed food and drink indiscriminately and having failed to engage in moderate exercise on a regular basis. Great lent is, then, an opportunity to correct this, as far as our health permits, for the season is not aimed solely at the inner life, but at the renovation of the whole person.

But another of the great features of the lenten landscape is the call to authenticate our prayer life. By this we understand not so much a call to more prayers as a call to a better, deeper, more intense and more consciously conscious relationship with God. During this time, we are asked to reconsider our whole life and the way we relate to God as we meet him in the person of our neighbor. Here, after all, is the arena in which the authenticity of our love is verified. For this reason, the texts of the lenten services are rich with poetic images to inspire us toward this process of advancement in prayer, which is simply another way of describing the spiritual life. Some of these poetic texts, by their references to various passages, especially those that show the Lord in action, draw us into the dynamic of living for and in the kingdom of God. Others may call our attention to the various ways in which we consciously or otherwise fail to live as we should before God. The individual's participation in the communal lenten celebration of services creates an atmosphere or tonality of life whereby the lenten struggle is made more palatable and palpable, less onerous and therefore more acceptable, precisely because we do it all of us together. The services are a continual reminder to us of what the season is about and of how crucial it is for us to engage in this period sincerely and with determination. These offices bring us to a better knowledge of God through a growing knowledge of Christ, and this colors, elevates, and increases our knowledge of ourselves. Thus we are able to form ourselves according to the pattern we find in Christ. In other words, we actually put on Christ. It preserves repentance as a true labor of love, preventing it from degenerating into some kind of grim self-disdain and joylessness. We see the prodigal in ourselves and we recognize the loving and forgiving Father as described by his Son, the only true theologian.

All this, then, provides a texture and fabric created by the threads of repentance, vigilance, watchfulness, self-control, conscientious worship, and an experience of living in a community characterized by the concern of the members for each other. It is an incentive and reminder of the courage needed to live out a meaningful and fruitful life, and it draws us away from the dangers and pitfalls of laziness, forgetfulness, and discouragement. The whole season, then, is a blessing from the Lord, just as one of the hymns describes it, and it is ours from which to draw the greatest profit.

In closing this very brief consideration of the nature of the lenten experience, it is of paramount importance to recall that we are not simply dealing with something that we do for forty days and then go back to our old ways of living. The idea of the season is to make lasting changes in our life. Thus, lent is not unlike the unrolling of a long carpet that stretches out into the rest of our time here on earth. We lay down, as it were, a new carpet with new aspects of ongoing repentance each year, and, with our own determination reinforced by the help of God, we grow constantly as the weeks and months go by. And this, after all is said and done, is what human life is about -- to grow into what the Lord expects of us.

New Skete
2000