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At our last meeting
we saw how in the ancient Church the Baptismal service was closely linked
to the Pascal service and how both the Baptismal service and that of
Pascha have retained elements that testify to this close connection. From
this Sunday evening we enter the period in the Church’s cycle known as
Great Lent which is closely associated with both Pascha and also our
Baptism. Above all Lent is a spiritual journey and its destination is
Pascha. It is our preparation that we may enter into the Feast of all
Feasts spiritually ready to understand the meaning of the great and unique
joy of the Resurrection and its significance and meaning to our own life.
The Paschal celebration is not only a commemoration of the new life that
shone forth from the grave two thousand years ago, it is also the
celebration of the new life given to each of us who believe in Christ and
this new life was given to us on the day of our Baptism. St. Paul says:
“we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Thus the celebration of Christ’s
Resurrection is something that happened to us on the day of our baptism
and continues to be renewed every year at Pascha.
To each of us at our
baptism was given the gift of the new life from the grave which gave a new
meaning to the general attitude of life and death understood by the
average man. For the Christian “death is no more” and as St. John
Chrysostom says in his Easter Sermon “Where, O death, is your sting?
Where, O Hades is your victory? Christ is risen, and thou art cast down.
Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen. Christ is risen, and the
angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life is liberated. Christ is risen,
and no one remains dead in a tomb”. Of course death is still there and it
is something that each of us will one day come face to face with: it is
something we cannot escape and it will come to take us, but through faith
we believe that Christ has changed the very nature of death and has made
it a passage – a Passover, a Pascha into the Kingdom of God.
It is this
very faith that Great Lent comes to strengthen and revitalise. Human
nature is weak and we constantly betray the “new life” we received as a
gift. We are consumed with our daily preoccupations and the cares of this
world. We fill our time with so many things that we must do that we forget
the true meaning of life and sink into a life void of Christ, living as
though he didn’t rise from the dead. Our life becomes a meaningless
journey and as we sink further and further into sin and in the midst of
our enjoying life we even forget that death looms over us and might all of
a sudden take us by surprise. Our new life we received at baptism becomes
buried under the mud of our various sins that the light of the
resurrection no longer shines in our hearts: it becomes so dimmed that our
life again resembles the “old life in darkness”. But how do we overcome
the pulling magnet of this world and the media which constantly teaches us
that life means to be successful, to seek wealth, fame and glory, a social
status which is identified by our home, our car and the brand names of our
clothes and accessories? These according to the world are the things that
will give us fulfilment and happiness in life and a sense of security and
pleasure. This according to the Gospel is the broad way, but Christ tells
us to choose the narrow way, the difficult and often painful road of
suffering which leads to genuine and eternal happiness. It is not an easy
choice especially in our age where the world at large considers suffering
for Christ as something foolish and illogical. It needs a certain amount
of faith to begin this journey of return and only if someone has
experienced at sometime in his life the “new man” in him can he understand
that there is at the end of the road a genuine happiness that has nothing
to do with this material world.
The Church fully
understands human weakness and knows that the individual cannot undertake
this difficult journey of return on his own and is ready to give to each
the strength and support that will help them safely reach the desired
destination. This is where Great Lent comes in: it is the help extended to
us by the Church. It is a period of repentance with prayer and fasting,
which if followed with obedience, will permit us to experience Pascha not
as a day where we celebrate just the historical event of the Lord’s
Resurrection and an excuse to eat drink and be merry, but as the renewal
of our Baptism with the reburying of the “old man” in us and the rebirth
of the “new man” bathed once more with the light of the Resurrection.
We saw in our
last meeting how the catechumens of old were prepared during Lent for
their Baptism at Easter and this was in fact the main purpose of Lent. But
even when infant baptisms prevailed and pre-baptismal instructions were
replaced with post-baptismal instructions, Lent still retained its basic
catechetical and baptismal character, but adapted itself to the spiritual
preparation of those already baptized. Thus Lent helps us to regain that
which we received at baptism and which we constantly lose due to worldly
distractions and careless living. Thus Pascha is our return every year to
our own Baptism, to our own death and resurrection and Lent is the way
that prepares us for that return.
But this
return will not happen if we do not take Lent seriously. The help the
Church gives during this period is not a set of negative rules and
obligations that she imposes on us. If we see Lent in this way then we
have lost the meaning before we even begin. Lent is much much more and
needs a state of mind where the person acknowledges his alienation from
God and hungers to re-establish the lost relationship and communion with
him. But this state of mind does not happen overnight: it needs its own
preparation. So long before the actual beginning of Lent the Church
announces its approach and invites us to enter into the period of pre-lenten
preparation. The Church knows how we humans cannot change abruptly from
one spiritual state of mind to another and need time to adjust and
prepare. This preparation is basically in the Gospel readings of the five
Sundays before Lent and in the Liturgical hymns. We have spoken before in
depth on the meaning of these five Sundays, but it will not harm us to do
a quick recap on how the Church teaches and prepares us for the frame of
mind we must have as we enter Great Lent.
The first
Sunday is know as the Sunday of Zacchaeus and the Gospel reading is about
the short tax collector Zacchaeus who desired so much to see Jesus that he
climbed up a tree. His desire was noticed by Jesus and in response went
with him to his house. Thus the theme of the first announcement is desire.
This is the first thing we need to begin our journey – a strong desire to
see Christ. It is the first act of repentance, because repentance begins
with the desire for God, his righteousness and for true life. In short the
Church is telling us that if we have the desire to want to approach and
see God then Christ will respond and come into our house and into our
hearts.
The next
Sunday is called the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. The Gospel
reading is about two men who went up to the temple to pray but with
different attitudes. The Pharisee is self-assured and proud of himself and
justifies himself before God that he is righteous, and not like other men,
and especially not like the Publican who he saw standing nearby. In
general the Pharisees which mean “the Separated” were the puritans of the
faith and strived to keep themselves pure from any spiritual, moral or
bodily contamination. They considered themselves above all other men
because they considered that their knowledge of the Law and their external
religious observances placed them above the common person and prided
themselves in self righteousness. The Publicans or tax collectors on the
other hand were despised and held in contempt by the people as being the
lowest of all men. But in contrast to the Pharisee, the Publican
recognized that he was a sinner and so much did he feel his unworthiness
before God that he stood afar off and smote upon his breast, saying, God
be merciful to me a sinner.
Thus the
Church teaches us that the next step on our journey is to learn humility,
something which is extremely difficult since our society, our whole way of
life teaches men that humility is a weakness, a sign of a loser. But God
himself is humble and if we want to follow in Christ’s footsteps we must
also learn to be humble as Christ said ‘Learn from me for I am meek and
humble in heart’. It takes a strong man to be humble. It is not just
turning the other cheek; it means to have Christ-like love, to love all
people and to be able to forgive them deep down in one’s heart, to be able
to truly say, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’. Humility
means not to blame others for our own errors, not to look around and judge
at what others do.
On the third
Sunday of preparation we hear the parable of the Prodigal Son. This is
probably one of the most touching stories which properly understood should
bring us to the brink of tears. It tells us of a man who had two sons and
the younger of the two asked his father to give him his share of the
inheritance that belonged to him. When he received his share he left and
went into a far country and there wasted all his inheritance by leading a
wasteful and reckless life. While he had money he was popular and everyone
wanted to know him, but now having wasted everything away he was alone,
homeless and starving. At some point, he came to his senses and realized
how comfortable he had been while still living with his father and so
decided to return. But he realized that he had greatly sinned against his
father and felt that he couldn’t return to the status he had before and
was willing to be a servant if his father would have him. As he was
approaching, but still a long way off, his father sees him and so
overwhelmed with joy that his son was still alive, runs and embraces him.
The Father reinstates him to his former glory and orders a feast to
celebrate his return.
The story then turns
to the elder son who was out working in the fields and on returning to the
house is informed that his father had ordered a celebration because of his
brother’s return. He was infuriated with the news and his envy clouded his
sense of judgement. He would have preferred that his father had punished
his brother and sent him away for ever. How could he receive him back as a
son and on top off this to kill the fatted calf to celebrate his return?
He felt this was a great injustice done to him because he had never
transgressed his father’s commandments and yet not once did his father
give him a baby goat to have a party with his friends.
The Parable has great
spiritual depth and many symbolic meanings which if we were to analyze
each one we would need a separate talk just on this Parable as we have
done in the past, but lets see the general meaning and how it identifies
to us. The Parable is in fact our return to our Baptism, our return
journey to God, the journey that Great Lent wants us to embark on to reach
Pascha our homeland. In the parable the father is God himself and the two
sons represent members of the Church – those who are active members and
those who have distanced themselves through careless living. The
inheritance that God gives them are the spiritual graces of the Holy
Spirit which we receive at Baptism. The far country is our self-imposed
exile far from God and the Church, and the younger son represents those
who waste the spiritual graces of the Holy Spirit living a reckless and
sinful life. The point when the Prodigal son comes to his senses is the
time we realize our wretched condition, when we realize that we are
spiritually starved, it is the beginning of our repentance and our desire
to return to God. And we begin our small effort to return to God with
prayer and fasting and God seeing our desire, doesn’t wait for us to reach
home, but sees us while we are still a long way away and runs to us and
embraces us and kisses us.
In the Parable it
says that the father orders the servants to dress the Prodigal Son with
the best robe, to put a ring on his finger and shoes for his feet. What do
these represent? They are the spiritual gifts that we received at Baptism.
The robe has a double meaning. It is the robe of righteousness that we are
dressed with immediately after our Baptism: the spiritual garment of
incorruption which we were to preserve spotless and undefiled. The second
meaning is a body of immortality. The best robe in the English
translations is not totally correct. In Greek it is (την πρώτη στολή) the
first robe, which properly interpreted means the first body that Adam had
before the fall: an immortal body which is what we will have on our return
to Paradise after the Second Coming. The fatted calf is of course a
reference to Christ himself who is sacrificed for us and by whom we are
nourished through Holy Communion and the celebration is the heavenly
banquet we will enjoy for all eternity.
As said earlier the
two sons represent the members of the Church. The younger of the two
represents the repentance sinner, but who is the older son? He represents
all those people who we see coming to Church every week, who strive to
live a life close to the Church and God. They keep the fasts and
everything the Church requires of them, in other words they appear
externally as good Christians, very much like the Pharisee who appeared as
a good Jew. But are they true Christians? Do they have the love and
compassion and forgiving nature of Christ for this is what it means to be
a Christian? Their true nature remains hidden and only comes to the
surface when they are faced with putting what they preach into practice.
Can they accept someone who they know has lived sinfully all his life: can
they accept a murderer, a whore or a thief on an equal level as
themselves? They have devoted all their lives to the Church - surely they
deserve to receive greater honour from God than these people who have
lived distant from God all their lives and now suddenly they decide they
want to know God. Is that justice? This attitude is something that we must
guard against: it is all too easy to full into the trap of pride and
self-righteousness. I have seen even monks full into this same trap. It is
a fact that when someone who has never known God suddenly becomes
enlightened and in a sense is “reborn” that God gives them a special grace
to help them stabilise and find strength to continue. Most people who have
grown up within the Church have never experienced this grace because
basically they didn’t have need of it, but when they see someone who has
only just found God shine with the grace of the Holy Spirit they are
overcome with envy and cannot understand how God has favoured them above
themselves who have devoted all their lives to prayer and fasting.
On the fourth
Sunday of preparation [Meatfare Sunday] we hear Christ’s parable of the
Last Judgement. In the parable Christ tells us what to expect at the Last
Judgement. At that time he will separate the people as a shepherd
separates the goats from the sheep, and some he will put to his right and
others to his left. But the criterion with which he will judge us will not
be whether we fasted, neither our prayers or how good a Christian we might
appear to be, but our attitude towards our fellow men. Christ said that
whatever help we offer even to the lowest man it is as though we offered
that help to him, and whatever help we didn’t offer to someone who was in
need it is as though we didn’t help him. In other words love is the
criterion by which we shall be judged. If we cannot love our fellow men
then in truth we don’t love Christ, because he has created each man in his
own image and likeness. Christian love transcends above someone’s physical
appearance, social standing, ethnic origin, intellectual capacity and
reaches the soul, the unique personal root of a human being where the
image of God is.
The next
Sunday (Cheesefare Sunday), which is this coming Sunday is called
Forgiveness Sunday and the last Sunday of preparation for Great Lent. It
has two themes: The first we hear in the hymns during Vespers and Mattins,
which is the Expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of bliss. Man was created
for Paradise, for knowledge of God and communion with Him. Man’s sin has
deprived him of that blessed life and his existence on earth is in exile.
Christ, the Saviour of the whole world, opens the door of Paradise to
everyone who follows him, and the Church revealing to us the beauty of the
Kingdom, makes our life a pilgrimage towards our heavenly fatherland. Thus
just before we begin our journey through Lent we are reminded of how great
a loss Paradise was for mankind and how much Adam must have wept bitterly
knowing what he had lost. A hymn from Vespers for the day says: “Adam sat
before Paradise and lamenting his nakedness, he wept: Woe is me! By evil
deceit was I persuaded and led astray, and now I am an exile from glory.
Woe is me! In my simplicity I was stripped naked, and now I am in want. O
Paradise, no more shall I take pleasure in thy joy; no more shall I look
upon the Lord my God and Maker, for I shall return to the earth whence I
was taken. O merciful and compassionate Lord, to thee I cry aloud; I am
fallen, have mercy on me”.
The second
theme of ‘fasting and forgiveness’ is taken from the Gospel for the day.
All the Gospels we heard in the previous weeks taught us how our inner
self should be to be saved. We must first have the desire of Zacchaeus,
the humility of the Publican, the repentance of the Prodigal Son and the
love of Christ. But to accomplish all these things is by no means an easy
task and each man needs a great deal of help to be able to reach home to
the Father. The help comes from Christ himself, but we must first take
that first step. Great lent is that period when the Church gives us the
opportunity to make these first and very essential steps and gives us the
means through fasting and the daily Lenten services. But the Gospel for
this Sunday of Forgiveness warns us to beware how we use these means at
our disposal. It tells us firstly that if we are to ask of our heavenly
Father to forgive our sins, we must also forgive those who have sinned
against us, and if we have not the love and humility to forgive them then
neither will our heavenly Father forgive us. Then reading then warns us
that when we fast to not be as the hypocrites who make themselves look
dismal, who disfigure their faces, so that they may appear to men that
they keep to a strict fast. This kind of fasting will have no reward from
God because it seeks it own reward from the praises of men. We should not
broadcast our fasting and other spiritual efforts; they are personal and
involve no one except ourselves and God. If we tell people of our
spiritual efforts we are either seeking for their praise or praising
ourselves in self righteousness by considering that we are good and
dutiful Christians far better than the average man who doesn’t pray or
fast. Thus Christ tells us to keep our fast a secret that only the
heavenly Father who knows the secrets of men can see and who will reward
us openly.
With these
five weeks our preparation for Lent is complete, and we are ready to begin
our journey to Pascha to that Feast of Feasts.
Lent in most
people’s minds means fasting but as mentioned earlier Lent is a period of
repentance with prayer and fasting: we cannot do one without the other.
Both are of equal importance if we are to enter into want can be described
as the “Lenten Atmosphere”. This atmosphere is brought about mainly by the
various daily Lenten services in the Liturgical life of the Church. Thus
to live and absorb this atmosphere we should attend these services, but
this is not practical or possible for the majority of people. When all
these services, hymns and canon were composed life was very different and
people lived in small rural communities where the rhythm of life was
shaped by the Church. Today we live in urban industrial and technological
societies where our lives are shaped by our occupation and other
obligations which to not allow us the luxury of taking time off to attend
Church. So attending the daily Lenten services is for most people out of
the question. Of course one can attend the Sunday services in Lent but
these do not actually reflect the Lenten worship and they do not allow the
person to enter into that special feeling of Lent.
For those of you who
do not understand Greek the situation is even worse because even if you
found time to attend the daily services you cannot benefit from the many
readings and the contrite and sorrowful hymns. You are in a sense deprived
of the special help the Church gives to help us get a feeling of
repentance and which will give us strength and support through the 7 long
weeks of the Lenten struggle. So what do you do? Do you just keep the fast
and leave it at that and say never mind? Well no: not if you want to get
the most benefit out of Lent. There are things you can do for yourselves.
The first thing we need to do is to change our lifestyle. Living the
Orthodox life begins from the home and it is important to apply certain
principles into the family unit that every member will identify that Lent
is not just a period of fasting but a period of change.
In general most of us
have become armchair vegetables glued to the TV and passively accepting
anything coming from it. If we are not watching TV then the radio or CD is
playing in the background. In the age of computers our children are fast
becoming computer addicts and spend all their time playing computer games
of surfing the internet. Many have never even read a book other than the
books they are obliged to read for school work. Thus with a little effort
Lent can be introduced into the family unit as a time where these
activities are drastically reduced. But if these are negative elements
then they must be replaced with positive elements. For example,
conversation within the family is something that needs to be seen as
positive and essential as is also reading a book in total silence.
Mealtimes are
important family occasions and special attention should be given that the
family eat as a unit whatever has been prepared. Very often mothers
prepare two meals - one for those who want to fast and one for the family
members who insist they cannot. But the meaning of fasting is not to
fulfil our desires for deliciously tasting meals, but rather to eat simple
meals and just enough to nourish the body. A good way to prepare children
for Lent is to talk to them beforehand that the whole family will be
fasting and ask them to make that special effort. Prayer at mealtimes is
also important and is not something that should be done only during Lent
but at every meal throughout the year. In general we say the Lord ’s
Prayer before the midday meal. If you have young children you do not have
to be as strict with their fasting. They will not as yet understand the
meaning of fasting so the objective is to get them to become accustomed to
fasting and hopefully when they grow up they will continue fasting of
their own free will.
With my own children
when they were younger, we would insist that they keep the fast strictly
for the first and sometimes the second week. We would then allow them to
introduce milk, into their diet and by the end of the third week we would
give them a treat for their efforts by taking them to McDonalds. The next
three weeks we would allow them the occasional meal with cheese or fish
and Holy Week would then be observed by a strict fast. Each child is
different with different levels of self control and girls more than boys
are more likely to willingly keep the fast even outside of the home.
Overall, children should not view fasting as a burden imposed on them by
the Church or their parents. It should not be portrayed to them as a
“little suffering” which is somehow pleasing to God or as a form of
punishment imposed on them because they were naughty. These are all
negative thoughts which instil a fear of God in their hearts rather than
love for God. Explaining to children the true meaning of fasting is
difficult because it is beyond the reach of their understanding. Probably
the only thing they might apprehend is that fasting is a tool that will
help them develop self-discipline, a self control over their bodies and
that because we love the Lord we fast following his example who fasted for
forty days in the wilderness. It would also be good for them to develop a
sense of thanksgiving by being reminded of the starving millions who would
consider their fasting food as a great feast. As they become adults they
can find material to help them understand the deeper spiritual meanings of
fasting and how it can be used as a tool to help them overcome the many
passions that keep us earthbound and do not allow us to experience the
spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us at our Baptism. In this
sense fasting can be seen as a joyful experience.
Having made
changes to our family environment how else can we help ourselves to enter
the atmosphere of Lent? Whether we like it or not, computers have become a
part of our lives so why not put them to good use. Those of you who have
internet can read online or download all the Lenten services and even if
you don’t attend Church you can devote some special time to read them at
home. You do not have to read everything, but read as much as your
strength allows you. There is also a excellent translation of the Lenten
Triodion in English by Bishop Kallistos Ware which you can buy online and
if you don’t have a computer then maybe a friend can order it for you.
Another way is to give more time to your daily prayers and time for
reading from Holy Scripture. The Psalms are a excellent source of prayer
especially the penitential Psalm 50 (51 in the KJV). There is also the
special Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian which is said at the end
of all the Lenten Services. This short and simple prayer occupies such an
important position in the entire Lenten worship, because it contains all
the negative and positive elements of repentance and continually reminds
us of the things we should be aiming for with our Lenten effort. The
prayer consists of three verses and after each one we make a prostration.
We then make 12 more prostrations saying “O God be
merciful unto me a sinner” and then repeat the last verse. The
Prayer is as follows:
“O
Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency,
lust for power, and vain words.
But the spirit of integrity, humility, patience and love, grant unto me
Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me awareness of my own sins and let me not
judge my brother: for blessed art Thou for ever and ever. Amen.”
We do
not have time for me to give you a detailed analysis of the prayer, but I
have printed out for you what I said on the prayer in one of our early
talks. Those of you with internet can again read it on the website. In
short it consists of four negative elements which we ask God to take from
us and replace them with four positive elements. This is then summarized
by the concluding petition: Grant me awareness of my own sins and let me
not judge my brother. In other words, let me see my own errors and not the
errors of others.
I hope that
what was said today was helpful in preparing you for Great Lent and your
return journey to your Baptism and the expected joy of the Resurrection.
If fact we have only seen a small part of the preparation for Lent and not
Lent itself. Many books have been written on the subject, but books can
only tell us what we should expect to feel and experience in Lent. What
they cannot do is give us the actual feeling and atmosphere which in the
final analysis can only be experienced by living Lent itself and the level
of this experience according to the input of our effort.
I wish you all
“Kalo Stadio” for your spiritual journey and as in the Parable of the
Prodigal Son, may God run out to meet you while you are still a long way
off.
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