Recently in Lent Category

We just returned from Forgiveness Vespers, the formal start of Great Lent for the Orthodox. It's an amazing service. Here's what I wrote about it last year. Excerpt from that post:

Thus began one of the most remarkable rituals I've ever seen, much less been a part of. We all went around the church, in circular receiving lines, asking forgiveness of each other. The way it worked was like this: two congregants stand facing each other. Then both make the sign of the cross, fall to their knees, bow humbly to each other, touching their heads to the floor, then stand. Each one says, "Forgive me, brother (or sister)." Then they embrace, kiss each other three times on the cheek, and say to each other, "God forgives you, I forgive you," or some slight variation on that.

Imagine doing that over 100 times. With every single person in church. The ones you love. The ones you know you should love. The ones who have hurt or offended you. The ones you've not befriended. The ones you've done wrong in some way. Every single man, woman and child. It's astonishing to watch a priest fall to the ground and ask a little girl to forgive him. To see mothers and fathers fall down in front of their children and ask for (and offer) forgiveness.

But it happened tonight.

There's nothing quite like watching an 85 year old archbishop, in full episcopal regalia, fall to his knees in front of a child and ask the little one to forgive him. That's Christianity.

In that spirit, I'd like to ask all of you for your forgiveness for the ways I have offended you in this past year. I don't ask for forgiveness for holding beliefs you don't hold, and I don't think most of you would expect me to. We can't always agree, obviously. But I do ask your forgiveness for the many, many times I spoke (wrote) harshly, nastily, cruelly or rashly. It is important for me to proclaim and defend what I believe to be the truth, but it's also important for me to do so in love, not anger or vindictiveness. I know my temper and pride are big problems for me, and I ask you to forgive me and to pray that I will conquer them.

A blessed fast to you all.

This priceless quote from the Lent thread below:

I told my girlfriend i'd probably break up with her if she gave up sex or sexual acts for Lent. I figure if she's already fine with premarital sex, she's not that interested in following religious rules to begin with, so why would she introduce such a conflict to our relationship?

David Mills has a good piece up today on the value of fasting for Lent. Excerpt:

We are creatures of ravenous, indiscriminate desire. We want this and we want that, but most of all, We Want.

Hence the value of Lent, which begins today, and of an old discipline that seems, even among Catholics, to be now somewhat neglected: the traditional discipline of giving things up for Lent. Bookish people being as fallen as anyone else, we might take a brief break from the pressing issues and interesting intellectual questions to reflect on the value of this discipline. Giving things up for Lent has, in my experience, two obvious benefits.

The first is that you very quickly find out how much a hold the world has on you. This is a lesson to which the Christian will give intellectual assent, but few of us really see what it means. We like to think of ourselves being happy to give up anything for the Lord just like that, with a snap of our fingers, even our lives, but most of us find it hard to give up something that really doesn't matter. You dream of standing up to the lions in the coliseum, and find yourself snapping at the waitress because the restaurant is out of your favorite dessert.

We are not in shape, and we are also delusional. Spiritually, we're like the pot-bellied middle-aged guy in the speedo swimsuit at the beach, who is just shocked that the twenty-year-old girls in bikinis are not hanging all over him and cooing. He would have a better idea why were he to hit the gym.

As you might know, Orthodox Christians are obliged to go without meat and dairy for the entire Lenten period. We ease into it. After Sunday, we haven't been eating meat. After this coming Sunday, dairy will be out of our diets. (I'm about to go have raw broccoli and hummus for lunch). It is very, very tough, at least if you're not used to it. Father John at my parish advised Julie and me to take it easy at first, to grasp that the fast itself is not the point; the fast should be a means of bring us toward holiness. If you make following the rule of the fast the point of the fast, you're missing the reason for the discipline.

In my experience, David is absolutely right: you have no idea how much of a hold the world has on you until you try to give up something ordinary. This is why it's so important. Through the Lenten fast, we recapture some of our freedom. And, as David goes on to say, it makes you all the more grateful when the fast ends for all the good things we do have.

Are you giving up anything for Lent? What? Why? Discuss.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day Western Christians begin the Lenten period of fasting in preparation for Easter (we Orthodox are running a bit behind our Western brethren and sistren this year). Warm wishes to you all, and prayers for a blessed Lent. I don't know about you, but I need Lent this year. On the most superficial level, my appetites got the best of me these past few months, and I need to fast, to regain control of them. But I also have a lot of repenting to do, and taking stock of the way I live. We as a culture do as well, and this "day of reckoning" (to use the president's phrase from last night) now upon us ought to be a time of sober reflection and repentance.

To start Lent, I would ask my readers to reflect on what you most need to repent of, and share it with us. Obviously only share as much as you're comfortable with. Please don't advise what the rest of us need to repent of. Focus on yourself, and your own life. Because there's not one of us who doesn't need to repent. If you think you don't, then you suffer from spiritual pride.

As for myself, I need to turn away from my lack of spiritual discipline, specifically in my prayer life. There is simply no way to live an authentically Christian life without more than minimal prayer. I make time for all kinds of things, but not regular prayer.

I also need to turn from my impatience with my children, especially my oldest son. He is a challenge to live with, but so many times I find myself speaking to him with sharpness that I only realize later wasn't right. It's not right, and I'm sorry about that.

There are other sins, of course, but those are the ones on my mind today. What about you, in your life?