Great Lent Is a Time of Doing More, Not of Having Less
Many people seem to think of Great Lent
as a time of denial and deprivation, a time of struggle and suffering. In fact, Great Lent offers us the opportunity
to gain and grow, to renew and rejoice.
It is true that in this time we emphasize prayer, fasting, and works of
charity. But these are things that are
normal parts of Christian life all year ‘round.
Great Lent provides us with the incentive to do more, to seek the “life
in abundance” that Jesus came to bring us.
Great Lent isn’t about having less—less leisure time, less food, less
money. It is about doing more—devoting
more time in prayer to our relationship with God; becoming more conscious,
through fasting, of food as God’s generous gift to us; doing more good works to
help our sisters and brothers.
Prayer
in Great Lent typically
focuses on the church services of the Akathist Hymn, Great Compline, and
Presanctified Eucharist. It also points
us to the Prayer of St Ephrem, which warns us of the dangers of laziness,
greed, pride, and gossip, and reminds us of the virtues of humility, patience,
love, and self-control. We can also
devote more time to prayer by reading the Holy Bible, especially the Old
Testament books of Genesis, Isaiah, and Proverbs. How powerful it would be for all parishioners
and friends of St Joseph Church to take extra time each day to pray for our
parish—that it may grow in faith and spiritual insight, that it may grow in
numbers, that it may grow in charity and generosity, and that it may grow
always in giving glory to God.
Fasting
has always been part of
human religious experience, in practically every culture. Fasting accomplishes many things: it makes us aware of our dependence on food,
which comes from God, and so makes us thankful.
It makes us aware of the strength God gives us to endure hardships. It makes us realize that we don’t really need
to eat and drink so much, or so richly, and so helps us find humility and
generosity. It sharpens our senses and
weakens our resistance, bringing us closer to God and making us more open to
God. It helps us to understand the
suffering of the poor and makes us more willing to help them. Fasting also helps us to connect with the
sufferings of Jesus Christ and to have a better appreciation of His sacrifices
for our salvation. The Holy Tradition of
our Church gives us guidelines to help us experience all these effects and
benefits of fasting.
The
Traditional Fast is
quite strict. The use of olive oil and
wine (or other alcoholic drinks) is not permitted, nor the flesh of any animal
with a backbone (including fish, except on the feast of the Annunciation and on
Palm Sunday), nor animal products (milk, cheese, butter, eggs, lard,
etc.). On weekdays, only one meal, in
the evening after Vespers. On Saturdays
and Sundays, two meals, at mid-day and in the evening, with olive oil and wine
permitted, which are also allowed on 24 February (the 1st and 2nd
Finding of the Head of John the Baptist), on 9 March (the 40 Holy Martyrs of
Sebastea), on 24 March (Forefeast of the Annunciation), on 26 March (Synaxis of
the Archangel Gabriel), and on Holy Thursday.
Fasting is more intense in the first week of Great Lent and in Holy
Week. The traditional fast is now seldom
observed with complete strictness.
In
Current Fasting Practice, many
Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox Christians keep the first week of Lent and Holy
Week as times of stricter fast, but modify the fast during the remainder of
Great Lent. Typically, those keeping a strict fast would not eat before noon on
any day, and would not eat a second meal until after receiving the Eucharist at
the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday or Friday evening. A strict fast might permit fish, but would
still exclude meat, animal products, olive oil, and alcohol.
The Absolute
Minimum Fast, according to the Pastoral Handbook of the Diocese of Newton,
means not eating before noon on the first day of Great Lent and on Great
Thursday, Great Friday, and Great and Holy Saturday, and not eating meat on
those days or the Fridays of Great Lent (just as we do not eat meat on other
Fridays).
Fasting is a physical and spiritual
discipline. It is not meant to cause
suffering or physical harm. However, it
is meant to require effort and to impose some hardship, not because the body or
the material world is bad and must be despised, and not because by our effort
we can win God’s favor, but because hardship helps us to focus on the Source of
all good, and because God asks our cooperation with His will.
Fasting is not an end in itself, nor a
legal obligation. As Bishop Kallistos
Ware writes, “Divorced from prayer and from the reception of the holy
sacraments, unaccompanied by acts of compassion, our fasting becomes
pharisaical or even demonic. It leads,
not to contrition and joyfulness, but to pride, inward tension, and
irritability.”
No one should feel guilty or discouraged
if he or she cannot follow the fast because of health or other weakness. Likewise, no one should take pride is
observing the fast, but rather should give thanks and glory to God, who makes
it possible. But no one can simply
dismiss the fast as not applicable, or as inconvenient, or as meaningless. Follow the fast as strictly as you can, with
equal attention to prayer and almsgiving.
Ask your pastor for guidance if you need to modify the fast. Don’t just make up your own rules, because it
is important for the whole community to share in the effort to come closer to
God.
Good
Works are the fruit of
faith. Our belief in God—Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit—causes us to put our faith into action, to fulfill the
commandments of Jesus to love God completely and to love our neighbors just as
we love ourselves. During Great Lent, we
are challenged to do more good works, to increase our efforts to share God’s
love and generosity. We can do this with
our time and talent, such as helping in a food bank or community service
center, helping build houses with Habitat for Humanity, walking in support of a
good cause such as breast cancer, hunger, AIDS, or opposition to the death
penalty, and so on. We can do this with
our money, giving more to our parish, to our favorite charities, to individuals
who ask us for help, to The Shepherd’s Care program of our Melkite Church, and
so on.
Everything we do in Great Lent should be
done not because of compulsion or fear of breaking the rules, but because we
love God and seek to glorify and thank God for all the gifts we have
received—life, health, family, food, prosperity, education, freedom, faith, and
above all, salvation to eternal life.
So, Happy Lent to everyone! Because Lent is about more, not less.
