Monday marks
the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church (which liturgically begins
at Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday). Though Great Lent is kept with rigor in
Orthodox Tradition, there is nothing unusual asked of believers – nothing that
we do not do on many days throughout the rest of the year. We fast; we pray; we
give alms; we attend services, etc. But we do these with greater intensity and
frequency during the Great Fast (the more universal name of the season). As
preparation for the feast of Pascha, the “feast of feasts,” all of these
disciplines drive the point of the Christian faith further and deeper.
Much of
modern Christianity lives as a stranger to ascetical discipline. Few Christians
fast, and the fasting of many others has forgotten the traditions of earlier
generations. Various historical factors have turned the Christian life into a
set of beliefs rather than a way of life. Monasticism seems exotic to many.
There is
nothing exotic about asceticism. The New Testament assumes fasting and similar
activities as normative for the Christian life. The Pharisees observed that the
disciples of Jesus did not fast. When Christ was asked about this omission
(something that seemed entirely unusual in the Judaism of the time), He
responded:
Can the
friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the
days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they
will fast (Matt. 9:15).
The days
in which “the bridegroom is taken away” are the days in which we live. Fasting
is normative. Fasting is part of the practice of continual repentance – the
proper attitude of the Christian heart. Repentance is not a single action taken
in response to having done something wrong – repentance is a state of the heart
– the state of brokenness and contrition:
A broken
and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise (Psalm 51).
To a
large extent – this is the goal of the Christian way of life – to cultivate a
heart of repentance. King David is called “a man after God’s own heart,” not
because he was without sin (he was an adulterer and a murderer). He was a man
after God’s own heart because when confronted with his sin – his heart is
broken. He makes no defense and offers no excuse.
St. Paul
offers this admonition:
I appeal
to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable
and perfect. For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober
judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him
(Romans 12:1-3).
No other
single passage, it seems to me, manages to gather as many aspects of the Lenten
life (and thus daily life at all times). Our bodies become “a living
sacrifice.” I can only wonder which sacrifice St. Paul had in mind (there were
many different ones in the Old Testament). Or it may be that the sacrifice of Christ
is now the dominant image for him. But our bodies, now “crucified” with Christ
are offered up in what St. Paul calls our
“spiritual worship” logike latrein.
To offer
our bodies as a sacrifice, through fasting and prayer, is itself lifted up to
the level of worship, and interestingly our logike worship (“spiritual” is
perhaps a more accurate translation than “reasonable” as some render it –
though it would also be quite accurate to translate it as “natural” or “the
worship that is proper to us as human beings”). It is a struggle to fast, to
present our bodies as a “living” sacrifice. This is so much more than a “one
time” offering: it stretches through the days and nights of this great season.
St. Paul
then admonishes us not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by
the renewal of our mind (nous) which could easily be rendered “heart.” Fr. John
Behr describes the passions, in his The Mystery of Christ, as “false
perceptions,” our own misunderstanding of the body and its natural desires. Thus
renewing our minds is an inner change in the perception of our selves and our
desires, or in the words of St. Irenaeus (quoted frequently by Behr) “the true
understanding of things as they are, that is, of God and of human beings.”
I find it
of great importance, that St. Paul concludes this small admonition by pointing
us towards humility (as he does as well in Philippians 2). It is in embracing
the cross of Christ, in emptying ourselves towards God and towards others that
our true self is to be found and that our minds are renewed. We cannot look
within ourselves to find our true selves. “For he who seeks to save his life
will lose it.” Rather the true self is found when we turn to the other and pour
ourselves out towards them. We find ourselves by losing ourselves in the
beloved. This is the love that makes all things possible for us.
The Fast,
like all things in the gospel, is ultimately an act of love. It is an act of
love for it is a training in the sacrifice of self. Having denied ourselves in
such small things (such as abstaining from various foods and drink), we learn
to deny ourselves in much larger things – such as pride and anger, self-love
and envy. By God’s grace such efforts are molded into the image of Christ – who
Himself began His ministry with a fast of 40 days – and this for love.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2010/02/15/the-great-fast/
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