To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Diocese of the West:
For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, and perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else” in Lent – something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This “something else” can be described as an “atmosphere…” into which one enters…which permeates our entire life. Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.
– Fr. Alexander Schmemann – Great Lent, the Journey to Pascha
Dearly beloved,
Our beloved Father Alexander outlines the true Lenten dilemma, doesn’t he? Isn’t the effort to “soften” our hearts through the fasting, prayer, and repentance of Great Lent a sometime elusive goal? The holy forty days is a journey not only to the Passion and Resurrection, but a journey deep into our inner selves. Only through the self-denial of the Lenten effort does the hardness of the heart begin to dissolve. The Fathers remind us that it is impossible to pray on a full stomach. When we seek through quiet prayer true humility, we are moved to true repentance.
Only when we move away from the “rules and prescriptions” to a transcendent vision of the forty days as a journey back to Eden does the heart change. As we move closer and closer to true communion with God, we move further and further away from the self. It is impossible to remain unchanged when we look at Someone else instead of ourselves. But that transcendent vision does not then preclude the “rules and prescriptions,” but makes them the product of the vision. We do not move away from fasting, prayer, repentance, communion, and almsgiving! We move into them in an ever deeper understanding of God’s love for us and desire to see us return to Him.
I ask each of you, my spiritual children, to forgive me as we enter into the holy forty days. I wish for all my faithful parishes and each and every one of you a most fruitful and joyous Fast. May we all have softer hearts. May we all hunger and thirst after communion with God. May we all rejoice in the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection at the end of these most holy days.
With love in Christ,
