Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Lent and Today's Christian

Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org

Lent is just around the corner. It will be on us before we know it. But some people want to know what is the big deal about the Great Fast?

There are reminders of Lent in places other than Church calendars. My corner grocery store is decked out in Mardi Gras flags and umbrellas. There is even a special section that sells spices from New Orleans and other party favours.

As fate would have it, I will be in New Orleans around Mardi Gras this year as part of a conference. Following registration, everyone will be obliged to participate in a Mardi Gras parade into the French Quarter. I think I will be bringing my own beads, however . . .

Is it just I, or do we all get a sense that Lent has become a nonevent in the secularized western calendar?

Carnival, which in its original Latin, means "Good-bye, meat," has become the highlight of the season.

It is a pagan celebration not so much because of the carrying on, although that certainly is a consideration, but mainly because of the way in which it tends to juxtapose the material of this world against the otherworldly nature of Christianity.

It is as if we want to get the need for food and lust out of our system so that we may face Lent with a calm disposition!

And Lent has become so reduced to mere symbolism in the West that there is very little to differentiate it from other periods of the year.

Even when we hear people say they will give up something for Lent, it is such a trivial thing so as not to cause anyone any serious discomfort.

We have become too modern, too "with it" to suffer anything so archaic, so anachronistic, as a traditional Lenten observance.

Let's not get too wrapped up with being "modern," shall we? After all, the ancient Romans also liked to consider themselves as "modern." We all do! But what is modern soon becomes a footnote in a future history book.

What can Orthodoxy teach us all about the significance of Lent to our spiritual lives? And how is this relevant to contemporary society?

Let's take fasting as an example. Orthodoxy doesn't believe in changing the ancient fasting rules of the Church. Roman Catholicism did that, to everyone's spiritual peril, I believe. Fasting is necessary medicine for the soul. A doctor does not have the right to withhold necessary medicine to an ailing patient!

To fast properly in the Orthodox fashion is to make a great physical, as well as spiritual, "podvih" or exertion. One shouldn't do it without guidance from a Spiritual Father, if one isn't used to it, however.

The days and weeks of Lent are defined within the context of specific fasting and abstinence rules. These are balanced by complementary requirements for attendance at Services, the Presanctified Liturgy of St Gregory, prostrations (especially the Canon of St Andrew of Crete), many prayers and readings.

Fasting and prayer balance each other out. We deny ourselves to discipline our bodies and bring them under fuller subjection to the Dominion of God Who is our Lord.

We also deny ourselves to bring home to us the eschatological fact that we live in the now for the future. Our future destiny is a life of total immersion in God and His Life. It is one where there will be no distractions for us, no material needs that need satisfying. To fast and pray is to get a foretaste of what the next life will be like while living in the body right now.

We are called to be Temples of the Holy Spirit. That is not just a quaint phrase. Christ is calling us to continual self-renewal. Without this and the Oil of the Holy Spirit through a life lived in faith, hope and love, our Christian life becomes as symbolic as today's general experience of Lent.

Yet, there is much in contemporary society that seems to point to a need for what Orthodox Lenten Spirituality has to offer.

We see this in growing trends toward "spirituality at work," the health food movement, fasting as a good in itself and meditation workshops.

Medical practitioners are today obliged to write down in their patient reports all the herbal remedies they may be taking, as well as the traditional chemical stuff.

Diabetic clinics hold seminars in meditation and spirituality. Cancer treatment centres do even more of this. I have met people who attribute their cures to prayer and meditation as much as to medicine.

What does prayer do for us, medical people are asking themselves more and more.

We know that prayer does tend to make the kidneys work and warms our bodies. There are plenty of historical records regarding Pray-ers who generated so much heat that they could walk around in light clothing in the dead of winter.

Prayer also seems to set off all sorts of beneficial and positive effects in our minds and bodies. Orthodox monks have long counseled prayer during illness as a way to speed up recovery.

There are all kinds of studies on what prayer does for us from a physical and psychological point of view. People have been quick to capitalize on this and there are courses that one could take on the Jesus Prayer, for example, for a fee . . .

Everyone reading this will have their own story to tell about their religious experience in this regard. I have mine.

Being diagnosed with diabetes a year ago today, I fell into a deep depression that tended to exacerbate my abnormally high glucose ratings. Even pills weren't helping. One could always take more pills. After seeing my father deteriorate from diabetes the way he did, I was settling in for what I thought was the inevitable.

Some time ago, at the advice of an Orthodox Monk, I took up the practice of getting through the psalter of David each week. It became like "second nature."

Now, however, it seemed to take me forever to read through the Psalms.

Then, as I was reading Psalm 9 at work one day, I got to a line that not only spoke in a special way to me, it caused an unforgettable effect.

At that moment, it felt as if I had a drink of milk. Indeed, I remember swallowing. A great sense of peace enveloped me. I tried to ignore it, telling myself this is all in my head.

Yet, as I got up and walked around, I felt that something was inside of me. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end . . .

Later that morning, I took my blood sugar reading and it was, for the first time, way below what it was before. I continued taking the pills, but my sugar was dropping at an amazing rate that even my doctor wouldn't believe.

In two days, after reporting my readings to the doctor, I received messages at work, home and everywhere. The message was - stop taking the pills, you don't need them anymore. I still don't.

I have since met other people who have had similar experiences, the experience of feeling milk being poured into them etc.

I now speak at diabetic workshops about this, together with others.

Doctors and other health care practitioners are thinking about how to repeat this experience under laboratory-controlled conditions.

The point is, they can't. Those who have experienced these things didn't expect them when they did. They came as a surprise and, like me, tried to ignore what was so obvious to their senses.

We should pray and fast, especially during Lent. We may also expect God to respond to our prayer.

God will, but in His good time, not ours. But when He does, oh, can Heaven be any better?

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