avo@icad.com (Alex Orlovsky) (03/01/90)
A very old tradition of the church is to prepare for Easter during a period of forty days known as Lent or the Great Fast. The forty day fast goes way back: it was not considered new at the council of Nicea (323), while in the second and third centuries Christians were known to fast from two to six days immediately before Easter. This time is upon us. Fasting has all but died in the West, but up until the 13th century or so, all Christians fasted by avoiding meat. How ironic that nowadays we in the West are eating ourselves sick ! The point of the Fast is preparation for the Feast of feasts. It is a time for prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Fasting is not done because food in itself is bad: quite the contrary. It is a means of purifying oneself so that all our eating may become spiritual and eucharistic. Anyone who has not eaten for a day will see even in a single olive a gloriously nourishing gift from God. How to fast? No one rule of fasting applies to all. The Fathers recommended that one should strive to leave the table feeling that one could have taken more and, above all, ready for prayer. Rather than bore you all with my own thoughts, I've presented a few quotes from the Fathers and some from the Orthodox services for the first week of the Fast. from Vespers on the Saturday before Lent: "Adam was cast out of Paradise through eating from the tree. Seated before the gates he wept, lamenting with a pitiful voice and saying: `Woe is me, what have I suffered in my misery! I transgressed one commandment of the Master, and now am deprived of every blessing! O most holy paradise planted for my sake and shut because of Eve, pray to Him that made thee and fashioned me, that once more I may take pleasure in thy flowers.' Then the Saviour said to him: `I desire not the loss of the creature which I fashioned, but that he should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; and when he comes to me I will not cast him out." from Sunday Vespers, at the very start of Lent: "Let us set out with joy upon the season of the Fast, and prepare ourselves for spiritual combat. Let us purify our soul and cleanse our flesh; and as we fast from food, let us abstain also from every passion. Rejoicing in the virtues of the Spirit may we persevere with love, and so be counted worthy to see the solemn Passion of Christ our God, and with great spiritual gladness to behold His holy Passover." "Now is the season of repentance. Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light." from Great Compline, throughout the first week: "My soul, O my soul, arise! Why art thou sleeping? The end draws near and soon thou shalt be troubled. Watch then that Christ thy God may spare thee, for He is everywhere present and fills all things." St. Basil: "You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother." What we achieve does not depend solely on our will: in the Canon of St. Andrew we have, "I have no tears, no repentance, no compunction; But as God do Thou Thyself, O Savior, bestow them upon me." It is a time of joy, not gloom. In the words of St. John Climacus (of the Ladder) to point of fasting is a penitential sorrow, which is a "joy-creating grief." Every weekday during Lent is said the prayer of St. Ephraim: "O Lord and Master of my life, take from me a spirit of laziness, despondency, lust for power and idle chatter, But give to me Thy servant a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love. Yea O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother, for Thou art holy unto the ages of ages, amen.