'Lent after Lent' and 'Life after Pascha'

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

The meditation below is from last year.  However, since human nature hasn't changed much since then; and since we face the same temptations and challenges this year, as we did last year, I decided to re-issue it for everyone's consideration. 

To speak on the personal level as a short introduction, I would share with everyone that one of my goals for this past Great Lent was not to buy any books(!).  I believe that I actually made it. (By the way, the withdrawal symptoms were not quite as bad as I anticipated). That is quite a modest goal, I must admit, but "I am who I am." 

The point is simply that if I now went out on a book-buying spree; or if I aggressively bought up a large portion of my amazon.com wish list (so far so good) that would certainly undermine any "lesson" or discipline that I may have learned during Great Lent.  Be that as it may, if you read below, you may better understand what I am getting at.

_______

“Lent after Lent” and “Life after Pascha”

I believe that a meaningful question that can be posed to any contemporary Orthodox parish is:  Is there life after Pascha? 

Another question has formed in my mind this morning:  Is there Lent after Lent? 

Before proceeding any further, I need to offer a brief point of clarification:  I apologize if I just happened to unsettle anyone with the frightening prospect of another immediate lenten period, because contrary to any possible misperceptions, I am not a “lent freak!”  My purpose in asking “Is there Lent after Lent?” is meant to pose a challenge. 

Is there anything spiritually fruitful that we began to do – or anything spiritually unfruitful that we ceased to do – during Great Lent that we can carry over with us into the paschal season and beyond?  Are we able to establish some genuine consistency in our ecclesial lives?  Surely this is one of the most important elements in nurturing a holistic approach to our Faith. 

If I am not mistaken, a real temptation that exists once Great Lent is over is to return to “life as usual,” as if Great Lent is at best a pious interlude during which we act more “religiously;” and at worst a period of specific rules that are meant to be more-or-less mechanically observed out of a sense of obligation.  This undermines the whole reality of repentance at its core, and drives us back into the dubious practice of the religious compartmentalization of our lives.  Great Lent is over – now what?

I am not even sure just how healthy it is to assess and analyze our Lenten efforts.  Great Lent is a “school of repentance,” but this does not mean that we are to grade ourselves upon its completion.  However, there are a number of things we can ask ourselves by way of a healthy assessment.

• Did I practice prayer, charity and fasting in a more responsible, regular, and consistent manner?

• Did I make a point of reading the Scriptures with the same care and consistency?

• Did I participate in the liturgical services with greater regularity?

• Did I watch over my language and gestures, or my words and actions, on an over-all basis with greater vigilance?

• Did I make a breakthrough in overcoming any specific “passions” or other manifestations of sinful living?

• Did I work on establishing any broken relationships?

• Did I simply give more of myself to Christ?

• Did I come to love Christ even more as I prostrated myself in faith before His life-giving Cross and tomb?

If these points, or at least some of them were part of your lenten effort, then why not continue?  Not to continue is to somehow fail to actualize in our lives the renewal and restoration of our human nature that definitively occurred through the Cross and Resurrection.  Appropriating the fruits of Christ’s redemptive Death and life-giving Resurrection is essential for our self-designation as Christians.

In other words, can we carry the “spirit” of Lent (and some of its practices) with us outside of Lent?  In this way, we are no longer “keeping Lent” but simply practicing our Faith with the vigilance it requires.  We still must fast (on the appropriate days), pray and give alms.  We still need to nourish ourselves with the Holy Scriptures.  We must continue to wage “warfare against the passions” that are always threatening to engulf us.  We need to deepen our love for Christ so that it surpasses any other commitment based on love in our lives. 

Or, have we doomed ourselves to being intense in the practice of our Faith for a short, predetermined length of time, and then pay “lip service” to, or offer token observance of, the Christian life until next year?  In a rather unfortunate twist, Great Lent can work against us when we reduce it to such a limited purpose.  Great Lent is the designated time of year meant to get us “back on track” so as to live more consciously Christian lives because certain circumstances and our weaknesses often work against us.  It is the “example” rather than the “exception” if properly understood.  In other areas of life, do we simply abandon good practices – in matters of health, let us say – because a designated period of testing or observing these good practices has come to an end?

Today may be a good day to reawaken to the glorious gift of life offered to us in the Church.  In less than week from today - next Wednesday, April 22 - we will return to our usual pattern of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, as the initial glow of Pascha slowly recedes.  I would suggest that this may be one of the most difficult days of fasting in the entire year.  It is very hard to reestablish a discipline temporarily suspended with the paschal celebration.  Yes, in many ways, we are returning to “life as usual,” even in the Church, but that is a “way of life” directed by the wisdom of the Church toward our salvation and as a witness to the world.  Let us take the “best of Lent” and continue with it throughout the days of our lives.

“Lent after Lent” means that there is “Life after Pascha.”

A "Joy-Creating Sorrow"

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

As a parish, we have gone from strength to strength this Great Lent at least in relation to the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.  In the past, we have often started out well, but the lenten "law" of attrition seemed to wear us down and by the last Presanctified Liturgy only a weary, and noticeably-reduced, remnant  bravely appeared by the last week of Lent - the Week of Palms.  Not so this year!  With almost seventy worshippers, it was by far our largest group of the year.  And before the evening was over yesterday, we shared yet another wonderful lenten meal together (I am going to miss the tasty hummus!) with lively fellowship in the church hall, further enlivened by the presence of many children.  For all of this we thank God first and foremost.

Yet, it was also a time of sober reflection or, if you like, a kind of "taking stock" of how Great Lent and our lenten effort has affected our hearts.  Following "Lord, I Call Upon Thee," we chanted the following hymn:

        I am rich in passions,
        I am wrapped in the false robe of hypocrisy.
        Lacking self-restraint I delight in self-indulgence.
        I show a boundless lack of love.
        I see my mind cast down before the gates of repentance,
        starved of true goodness and sick with inattention.

This sticheron does not mention "breaking the fast" by eating some dairy products or - God forbid! - some meat during Great Lent.  Other hymns and prayers of course exhort us to continue with perseverance in the ascetical fast.  But the point of this frightening catalogue of moral and interior failings is to protect us from self-righteousness or a superficial complacency falsely grounded in our adherence to the more external aspects of the Fast. It is also meant to be applied in the form of "self-examination."  Following the teachings of Christ, the best of our sacred hymns want us to explore whether or not our external actions are consistent with our internal being.  We want our outward piety to reflect and manifest an interior process of purifying the heart.  Otherwise, we may have to confess that we are acting like a "jerk."  I am sure that that word sounds more than a little jarring in the context of this lenten meditation!  That is not exactly a word that you will hear in our liturgical prayers and hymns, or for that matter, coming from me.  Neither will you find it in the Scriptures.  What we will hear are words such as "fool," "hypocrite," "sinner," and so on.  However, we may just hear "jerk" in our daily lives - or use it ourselves about someone else - and since I came across a definition of the word that sounds as if it could have been written by a saint in defining the more biblical words mentioned above, I wanted to use it for its effect.

  

Some years ago a certain Sidney Harris, columnist for the Chicago Daily News, wrote that a jerk is "totally incapable of looking into the mirror of his own soul and shuddering at what he sees there."   Almost like an aphorism from one of the Desert Fathers!  Therefore, if any of the words in the above hymn are actually true about us, and we fail to recognize this truth due to our blindness, obtuseness or self-defensiveness; then in addition to being called a "hypocrite" we will have to bear the further burden of being a genuine "jerk" - at least according to Sidney Harris' definition.  Since most of us would find that rather intolerable, the best solution would be to take a careful and searching look into the mirror of our soul and "shudder" at what we see there if, indeed, it is less than pretty.  Then we can stand and knock "before the gates of repentance" and begin the process of healing, as the Lord will certainly open those gates on our behalf.  This is why, paradoxical as it may sound, it is good to see one's own sins!  That, in turn, is not meant to depress us - for God does not seek to depress us - but rather to activate us as demonstrated by the prodigal son who "arose and came to his father." (LK. 15:20)  Truly, it is a "joy-creating sorrow," for only then can we begin to turn to God begging for forgiveness and restoration to fellowship with Him and our neighbor.  We can only be free from the passions if we first recognize their presence withn us.

  

The remainder of the hymn I began with us is a humble plea to resemble one of the most humble - and pathetic - figures in the New Testament:

        But make me like Lazarus, who was poor in sin,
        lest I receive no answer when I pray,
        no finger dipped in water to relieve my burning tongue;
        and make me dwell in Abraham's bosom in Your love for mankind. 

To be "poor in sin" as was Lazarus, is to be freed from sin to a great extent.  Or, perhaps, to be dispassionate as the saints exhort us to strive for.  No doubt it is a hard and demanding battle that requires honesty, vigilance and repentance on our part.  That sure beats being a "jerk!"

Fr. Steven

'Make Me like Lazarus, who was Poor in Sin'

 Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

As a parish, we have gone from strength to strength this Great Lent at least in relation to the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.  In the past, we have often started out well, but the lenten "law" of attrition seemed to wear us down and by the last Presanctified Liturgy only a weary, and noticeably-reduced, remnant  bravely appeared by the last week of Lent - the Week of Palms.  Not so this year!  With almost seventy worshippers, it was by far our largest group of the year.  And before the evening was over yesterday, we shared yet another wonderful lenten meal together (I am going to miss the tasty hummus!) with lively fellowship in the church hall, further enlivened by the presence of many children.  For all of this we thank God first and foremost.

Yet, it was also a time of sober reflection or, if you like, a kind of "taking stock" of how Great Lent and our lenten effort has affected our hearts.  Following "Lord, I Call Upon Thee," we chanted the following hymn:

I am rich in passions,
I am wrapped in the false robe of hypocrisy.
Lacking self-restraint I delight in self-indulgence.
I show a boundless lack of love. I see my mind cast down before the gates of repentance, starved of true goodness and sick with inattention.

Finding our "Self" in the Other.

Dear Fathers, Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

What Is a "Selfie?"

    As we approach the final days of Great Lent, I would like to turn my attention to a theme that surfaces often in my teaching and preaching in addition to my reflection and reading:  And that is the contemporary preoccupation and obsession with the "self."  From therapists to talk-show hosts and even  "spiritual teachers," we are enjoined to "discover," "get in touch with," or "enhance" our "self."  We now hear of popular personalities actually "re-inventing" themselves as they "move on" to a new phase of life and experience.  And perhaps the most indulgent of all of this self-expression is the phenomenon of the "selfie!" In all of this, there seems to be an implicit understanding of just what this mysterious "self" actually is, because we refer to it so often and so readily. 

But is there common ground as to what we mean by this term?  If we were to depend on more-or-less contemporary psychology, or the behavioral sciences, we might ask the following questions:  Does the self mean our "personal identity" - what constitutes each one of us as an unique human being?  We distinguish each other by referring to "myself," "yourself," "himself/herself," and so on, thus concentrating on our individuality.  Perhaps it refers to our consciousness and ability to reflect upon our existence.   As in:  I know that I am alive and that one day I will die, therefore I have the capacity for "self-awareness."  Is the self simply synonomous with the "I" or "ego?"  Buddhism, on the other hand, rejects the very idea of the "self," calling it an illusion that is created by our constant desiring.  Perhaps, then, Buddhists are less self-absorbed than we are!  Yet, since we do not agree with Buddhism on this crucial issue and accept the "self" as integral to being human, then as Christians we would ultimately claim that there is something meaningful indicated by the term, the self.  That is what we should be trying to discover.

However, as noted above, our contemporary preoccupation with the self borders on the obsessive and idolatrous.  Life is presented as a long and exciting journey of "self-discovery."  But is this in reality the ultimate "ego trip," leading to "self-delusion?"  Frankly, a great deal of today's talk about the self sounds terribly superficial.  It is a far cry from the Delphic oracle's ancient maxim - taken up by later philosophers:  "Know thyself!" These are simply a few comments by way of preface to an insightful paragraph I came across while reading the book of a solid New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington III.  This author has uncovered a trend within certain writers today who transform theology (reality as God-centered) into anthropology (reality as human-centered).  In other words, in writing about God or Christ, they end up turning the whole quest into one more attempt at "self-discovery."  This is why such scholars are critical of the New Testament and attempt to bring some of the non-canonical Gospels into prominence.  These heretical and gnostic "Gospels" are essentially about discovering the "god within."  "Spirituality" is then really about "self-realization" if not "self-deification!"  In criticizing some of these  modern spiritual quests that seem only remotely related to the Gospel centered in Christ, Witherington concluded with the following paragraph - simple, direct and to the point:

        The problem with the advice "be yourself" or "be your own person" is that none of us are ourselves.
        We all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, and we need the redemption Christ offers us, not
        another self-help program.  We have fallen, and we can't get up on our own.  Self-help programs
        don't turn us into new creatures even if they can help us curb our addictions or become kinder,
        gentler folks.  Do we want to be ourselves as we are, or do we want to be something even better -
        to be like Christ and let Christ's life shine forth to others in such a way that they too will long to be
        like him?

We are not ourselves because we are fallen and sinful.  This is biblical.  A recognition of that fact may just serve as a good beginning to discover our "true self." And this is why Evagrios of Pontus, a desert ascetic, could write:  "The beginning of salvation is self-condemnation."   (You will not find a book in the "Self-Help" section on your local bookstore with this title!)  This has nothing to do with an unhealthy "self-hatred." It means to recognize our sins and need for repentance freed from the useless refuge of "self-justification."  Whatever the self may be in relation to some of the suggestions I offered above as plausible possibilities, the real question becomes:  what is the foundation or ground of the self?  What guarantees its stability and continuity?  What prevents the self from being one more fleeting and ephemeral reality, so much "dust in the wind" that goes the way of our bodies?  If anything, it has to be God.  Either the self is grounded and stabilized in God, or it is grounded in "nothing."  We are either "God-sourced" or "nothing-sourced."  If the latter, then the self  is unstable and ever on the brink of disappearing into the void.  Perhaps all of the clamorous cries of "self-affirmation" that we hear today are an instinctive reaction or even rebellion against this inherent nihilism.  A godless quest of self-discovery leads to a dead-end encounter with our own nothingness!   Do atheistic therapists and secular counselors remind their clients of that cold fact?

That last statement needs to be qualified, so as to avoid any misunderstanding as to my intended meaning.  Undoubtedly, there exist many wonderful "self-help" groups and therapies that have been very effective in helping people overcome a wide range of abberant behavioral problems, especially those plagued by addictions.  The most well-known has to be Alcoholics Anonymous, a therapy grounded in the Gospel that has rescued a countless number of men and women from alcoholism.  To this day, many people have recourse to such helpful societies in combatting their destructive behavior, and thus saving themselves from seemingly hopeless situations.  At the same time, a healthy "self-reliance" is cultivated and restored in persons who need such a change.  Many of these self-help groups acknowledge the existence of God and thus apply their respective therapies within a theistic context.  This adds a dimension of humility to the whole process.  However, it is not quite this phenomenon that I am dealing with here; but rather the empty promises, and even pseudo-theologies, that lead to any unhealthy preoccupation with the "self."

Something has to give between the contemporary obsession with the self that has generated an endless market for books, tapes, CDs, DVDs, seminars, programs, therapies, "self-help" gurus and the like; and the ever-demanding teaching of Our Lord:  "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself ... " (MK. 8:34)  This is not a Buddhist-like call to "self-transcendence" in search of enlightenment.  It is Christ's way of teaching us that to defensively, fearfully, or even idolatrously hold onto the "self" as some sort of autonomous entity will only culminate in the loss of our "life."  To deny such a self-centered way of existence for the sake of the Gospel is to actually "save" our life.  "Life" and "self" are very closely equated in this crucial passage.  Further, the word "life" is actually the word for "soul."  So biblically, we discover that the word "self" is basically synonomous with the word "soul/life."  Each and every one us is a "living soul," formed by the creative power of God and having received the "breath of life" that sustains us and lifts us up beyond the merely biological level of existence.

Employing our theological language further, we should also equate "self" with the person.  (The theological term is hypostasis).  Every living soul is a person - unique, unrepeatable and beloved of God.  As the three divine Persons of the Holy Trinity are never self-isolated, self-absorbed or self-centered, so we realize that that would be a false way of existing.  A genuine person is always turned toward another person in a movement of love and communion, as are the three Persons of the Trinity.  This gives us great insight into the teaching, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  (MK. 12:31)  "To be" is to be in communion, as one of our contemporary Orthodox theologians has explained.  If we could pour our energy into discovering the "wholly Other" - God, and the multiple others - the neighbor; then we would uncover our "true self" in the process.  Our Tradition tell us to find our "self" in the other - God and neighbor.  Being a living soul and/or a person, then, describes a mode of being, a way of life, that is as far removed from the thinly-veiled narcissism that passes today as "self-realization," as the "East is from the West!"

Orthodox Christianity affirms the self, but as dependent for its very existence upon the creative power of God and the redemptive grace of Christ.  Each and every one of us is created, sustained, and guided by God toward a destiny so glorious that it is essentially indescribable.  It is this humble acknowledgment of dependence on God that becomes the foundation of  that long process that will lead us from being "self-centered" to being "God-centered."   Perhaps we can go so far as to say:  we seek to be saved from our "self" in order to truly be ourselves in the embrace of God.   Today's world seems oblivious of this promise.

Fr. Steven