Lenten Praxis
The tradition of Great Lent is one of intensified praxis, or practice. Our of our journey is to be acsesis (Greek), or podvig (Slavonic), or Jihad (Arabic) or, in English, struggle. We are “working out our salvation in fear and trembling” as St Paul says. We are “running the race set before us.” Lent is a time of more-serious training.
To this end the Church provides many tools.
Fasting:
The cultural purpose of fasting (if you look at it historically) is, really, to bring the rich folks down to the gastronomical level of the poor. We underscore this when we insist that it’s not a full fast unless you are giving the money you save to the poor. Telling a poverty-stricken family in 8th Century Constantinople that they could only eat veggies was for them no hardship. Telling the Czar of all Russia or Emperor of Rome that he and his family had to eat only veggies creates an interesting image.
The traditional fast for Great Lent in the Orthodox tradition is to abstain from meat, fish, dairy, eggs, olive oil and wine for the entire period. Wine and oil are permitted on Saturdays and Sundays (and on certain other days commemorating the Saints) and Fish is also permitted on the Feast of the Annunciation as well as on Palm Sunday.
But the reality is that for most of us, work schedules, odd lunchtime meetings, health concerns and dietary restrictions might be of more import.
Problems only arise if you insist on reading “The traditional fast for Great Lent…” as meaning “I sin if I fail.”
Once – about 6 months after my Chrismation – I visited my family (who are not Orthodox) and I mentioned later in confession that I had been unable to keep the fast – it was Advent at the time. Fr D said, “That is the last I ever want to hear of food in confession.” Fr V said much the same thing the following Lent when I struggled with my blood sugar as if my life were less important than “the rules”.
This is not about rules, rather it is about desire. The purpose of curbing desire (which is otherwise natural) is because of our unnatural tendency to let desire grow to greed – wanting more than we need to live; and thence to gluttony – hoarding more than we need to live. As Americans we need to be especially aware of our greed and our gluttony: we live in such abundance that even ore poorest are sometimes better off than entire populations elsewhere. Our desire should be for them – rather than for ourselves.
If we get so hung up on our food – or our rejection of food – that we can not see the other, the Icon of God before us, then food has become our idol.
Services
The traditional Orthodox parish would be swamped with services through this time of year. Even the “loosest” Orthodox parish will have a couple of extra services each week. The most traditional will add Daily Matins and 3 or 4 week night services for most of Lent. Certainly it makes good sense to make wider use of the Church’s services. But why stop at Lent? If we can, I would have extra services all year. Our struggle is supposed to intensify in Lent – but not fall to lax the rest of the time. Still: we do what we can and, with my day job, I’m limited as well. So there are three sets of special Lenten prayers posted on the “Common Place Prayerbook” website:
The Daily First and Third hours for Lent are very good for morning use. There is no variable material here.
The Ninth Hour and Typika for Lent make a good evening prayer (before Supper).
While the traditional use calls for a full kathisma or section of the Psalms to be read at each office it makes more sense to read one antiphon or stasis of Psalms at each office. Begin with the First Kathisma on the first Monday of Lent and proceed forward on each weekday with the second on the Tuesday, the third on Wednesday, etc. If you don’t have time to read the Psalms at your regular prayer times, consider adding them as a Luncheon devotion, etc.
On Friday evenings there is Little Compline with the Akathist to the Theotokos, although for all other evenings there is Little Compline.
All of the offices include prostrations during lent, as well as the Prayer of St Ephraim with its prostrations and bows. Prostrations are always good acts, involving your full body in your prayer.
Additional tools are acts of Charity – given the recent situation in Haiti it may be very easy to find something to do! But better to stick close to home. Reach out to the homeless man you see every morning on the way to work. Find a way to get some clothes anonymously to a single mother at your office. Buy a bunch of bagged lunches and give them away. These acts of Charity are to be done in a spirit of joy and thanksgiving for the very act rather than somber piety. But most importantly they are to be done with a sense of connection, of relationship. Someone in another part of the world may need your money just as much as someone here… but the person here may hug you, may point out that he doesn’t need your money, will make it clear that she, too, is a person and an icon of God and not a mere object of your largesse.
Charity in the first person is also an act of humility: an act of saying you’re sorry for hoarding, for greed, for gluttony. I have so many shirts in my closet right now: winter ones, spring ones, summer ones. I need only two or three… and the same in socks and jeans and all. But I have more than I can store in my closet: an embarrassment of clothes and wealth. I need lent to kick me in the backside and make me aware of the other person, the other being, of Jesus standing in front of me.
Take time brace yourself and really struggle this Lent. But not just for lent: the purpose is to be ready to struggle always and forever for the kingdom to be made real.
