Ecclesiasticus I: Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy
Ecclesiasticus II: Orthodox Icons, Saints, Feasts and Prayer
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Before the Great Lent begins the Orthodox Church reserves
three weeks in order to encourage in its members a proper mental preparedness
towards the season of intense prayer, meditation and fasting. We must
learn not merely to accept lent as a spiritual obligation, an intrusion
into a life of fun and diversion, but rather we must learn to welcome
its discipline if we are to benefit by it spiritually.
Let us first mention certain misconceptions regarding this period:
the great danger of keeping a strict lent is that one tends to become
self-righteous. Wisely the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee is put
at the very start of the Triodion Cycle to impress upon our minds the
distastefulness of self-righteousness. It would be far better not to observe
the lent than to have it result in an arrogance, a ‘holier-than-you’ attitude.
Neither is lent intended for scoring points in heaven. The hairs
on our head may be numbered, as the Lord tells us; but it is highly unlikely
the angels keep track of whether we had a cheese sandwich or boloney for
lunch. We sometimes tend to keep the letter of the lent and fail to develop
an over-view, a general framework for understanding why we deprive ourselves
of certain foods and pleasures.
What we are about is to know ourselves. To know ourselves we must
withdraw from the world, to go into the desert as Jesus did following
his baptism. It is essential that we extricate our inner selves from our
surroundings, if we are to have an over-view of our lives. If we cannot
physically retreat, we must at least retreat mentally. This we are able
to do by the very fact that we are human beings. For example, a fish in
an aquarium is alive in every sense that we are who observe him; with
one exception. As far as we know, he is not able to transcend himself,
in the way we are. Not only are we able to look at ourselves from a distance,
we must analyze and evaluate ourselves to be truly human.
Fasting is simply to make us hungry, enabling us to evaluate the
person we really are; how enslaved we are to that drive which draws us
against our will to the refrigerator! How we cannot think about anything
but the growlings of the stomach! “I’ll get a headache, I just must eat
something,” you say. You’ve learned something about yourself.
We must see how we’ve surrendered the gift of freedom God intended
for us, as we reach out to our cigarettes or bottle, refusing to evade
the reality of our slavery until we hate the fetters enough that we will
admit that we are imprisoned by our habits, then make the difficult struggle
involved in setting ourselves free.
I am convinced, however, that concentration on ourselves is no
longer sufficient. We must mature into a new awareness of life around
us, developing a respect for nature and all of God’s creatures not previously
manifested among us. There is a need for a new attitude towards property,
both ours and others, a reverence for living beings over institutions
and man-made laws; we must have the courage to analyze and perhaps reevaluate
our priority of values. What should be borne uppermost in our minds, nevertheless,
is that true, effective and worthwhile change takes place in hearts and
consciences, and only their bearers can make them.
From Word
Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox
Christian Archdiocese of North America
February 1971
p. 7
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