Orthodox Perspectives on the Lenten Season

Chocolate or Booze?

This year the Eastern and Western celebrations of Easter coincide. Don’t they always? I hear you ask, no but that’s another story! This year Easter will be easier for us Orthodox as we don’t have to take time off work to attend services on Good Friday and we can feel part of the wider community in the celebration, however low-key these have become (i.e. watching “The Robe” on BBC2!) in British post-Christian society. Also we don’t have to keep chocolate Easter eggs uneaten for weeks on end till our Easter comes round either!

By the time this issue of Link comes out, Lenten preparation for the Orthodox will have started. We give up meat on Meat Fare Sunday which this year falls on 27^th February and the following Sunday is Cheese Fare Sunday when we give up dairy.

In fact preparation this year started on 6^th February the Sunday of Zacchaeus. You’ll recall the story in Luke 19.1:10 of Zacchaeus, a very rich tax collector, considered a sinner in the eyes of his Jewish contemporaries, an occupational hazard. He wanted to see Jesus, but being short of stature had to climb a sycamore tree. Jesus saw him in the tree and said to him:

 “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down and received Him joyfully.”  Luke 19: v5-6.

In Orthodox Tradition, handed down from the Apostolic era, through the early Church Fathers, Zacchaeus represents us, mired in sin. We too are short. Short on virtue and faith, we need to rise above our sin to see Jesus. We need to extricate ourselves from worldly things, represented by Zacchaeus having to climb the tree.  Jesus will come our way and call us. He wants to come and stay in our house (our heart). Zacchaeus received him joyfully, will we? We have free will and therefore we have to make the conscious decision to welcome Jesus in.

Zacchaeus took the first step to Salvation by welcoming Jesus to his house. He then seeks forgiveness by restoring fourfold, more than the Law (Ex22) required, anything he took from people unlawfully and gives half his goods to the poor thus showing his love of the Gospel.

So begins our clearly signposted journey through Lent to the glorious Resurrection. In Lent we abstain from worldly cares, we seek forgiveness and we carry out good works. Prayer and fasting are the vehicles we use to think of higher things. Every morning during Lent we say the 4^th Century Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian.

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.  But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen

A prostration follows each petition. Then we bow twelve times saying: “O God, cleanse me a sinner”

Oh...”chastity” in this sense is more about self-restraint, decorous behaviour not purely or only sexual.

Fasting, as with most things Orthodox is dependent on your health and stamina! Having already given up meat and dairy before Lent started we become completely vegan on the First Monday of Lent. That is to say no animal products or derivatives thereof. Wine and oil are allowed at weekends.

Some will use alternatives such as soya milk or vegetable oil as the stipulation is one can’t use olive oil. I personally see this as cheating as the whole point to is to give up worldly cares such as deliberating on how to satisfy your taste for milky coffee! The use of non-olive oil is a technicality as there wasn’t any other form of oil in the early Christian era so again, it’s cheating!

The first time I tried to do it properly, 18 years ago, I made myself ill and was confined to bed for two weeks. Since then I’ve had varying degrees of success trying to go the whole of Lent without “cheating”. You know how it is, as soon as someone says you can’t do something then you can’t think of anything else. Suddenly every advert on television is about meat, cheese or chocolate! You start meeting people called Lamb or Fish or Stu. You visit a client’s offices in Harrogate, which just happened to be opposite Betty’s Tea Shop!

 I grew up in a restaurant, so food (and therefore temptation) was always present. My parents did their best to get us to fast for at least the first week and the last week of Lent but as any vegan will tell you there’s almost nothing in the shops that you can eat if you’re looking for something in your lunch break! Chances are that the weather isn’t great, so yet another packet of carrot sticks or an apple just isn’t appealing. A tin of vegetable soup might not be vegan, a cuppa soup probably wouldn’t be. Labelling can be deceptive. You may recall Walkers Crisps had a series of novelty flavours out last year including “Cajun Squirrel” which was labelled suitable for vegetarians.

I wasn’t always this fundamentalist. It’s only the last 2 years that I feel I’ve been able to really enjoy Lent and by enjoy I mean begin to understand what the process is leading to, its importance and its relevance to me and the way I live my life.

 I don’t spend all my waking moments thinking of food like I used to. Not being engrossed in worrying about food or being sloth-like, we’ve got time for other things such as good works.  Being a Christian is not a spectator sport.

It’s not a coincidence that the Gospel reading on the Sunday after the Sunday of Zacchaeus is the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:10-14) The lesson to be learned is that we possess neither the Pharisee's religious piety, nor the Publican's repentance, through which we can be saved. We are called to see ourselves as we really are in the light of Christ's teaching, asking Him to be merciful to us, deliver us from sin, and to lead us on the path of salvation.

The following Sunday’s Gospel reading is the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).This parable of God's forgiveness calls us to come to ourselves" as did the prodigal son, to see ourselves as being "in a far country" far from the Father's house, and to make the journey of return to God. We are given every assurance by the Master that our heavenly Father will receive us with joy and gladness. We must only "arise and go," confessing our self-inflicted and sinful separation from that "home" where we truly belong.

You’ll probably by now begin to see a theme developing, as the following Sunday is the Parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). It reminds us that while trusting in Christ's love and mercy, we must not forget His righteous judgment when He comes again in glory.  Although God does not desire the death of a sinner, He also expects us to turn from our wickedness and live (Ezek. 33:11).

Now is the time for repentance and forgiveness, in the present life. At the Second Coming, Christ will appear as the righteous Judge, Who will render to every man according to his deeds" (Rom. 2:6). Then the time for entreating God's mercy and forgiveness will have passed.

This may sound very alien to the Anglican tradition, even the language might appear alarming, but to put it into more “accessible” language. “Sin is the absence of love, it is separation and isolation. When Christ comes to judge the world, His criterion for judgment will be love. Christian love entails seeing Christ in other people, our family, our friends, and everyone else we may encounter in our lives. We shall be judged on whether we have loved, or not loved, our neighbour. We show Christian love when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit those who are sick or in prison. If we did such things for the least of Christ's brethren, then we also did them for Christ (Mt.25:40). If we did not do such things for the least of the brethren, neither did we do them for Christ (Mt.25:45)”.¹

And on the Sunday before Great Lent starts, we commemorate the expulsion of Adam from Paradise. God commanded Adam to fast (Gen. 2:16). They exercised their free will and chose not to take God into their hearts.  Adam and Eve lost the life of blessedness, knowledge of God, and communion with Him, for which they were created, because of their actions.

Remember, it’s not good enough to be a champion faster if you do not seek forgiveness nor do you do good works. Fasting is not merely abstinence from food, but consists of self-denial in all areas of life in order to escape the control of the passions. Actually no one should even know you are fasting.

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly I say to you they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:16-18).

During the fasting seasons, hymns in the Orthodox liturgy call the faithful to wash and anoint their faces, thus there is no Ash Wednesday in the Orthodox Church. Fasting is for spiritual growth and the glory of God, not to be seen by those around us.

 Listen to the voice in your heart where you invited God to stay, like Zacchaeus did and is it still going to be chocolate or booze that you’re giving up again this year?

^1.                Father Alexander Schmemann  GREAT LENT (Ch. 1:4),