By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware
If we are to understand correctly the text of the Triodion and the spirituality that underlies it, there are five misconceptions about the Lenten fast against which we should guard. In the first place, the Lenten fast is not intended only for monks and nuns, but is enjoined on the whole Christian people. Nowhere do the Canons of the Ecumenical or Local Councils suggest that fasting is only for monks and not for the laity. By virtue of their Baptism, all Christians – whether married or under monastic vows – are Cross-bearers, following the same spiritual path. The exterior conditions in which they live out their Christianity display a wide variety, but in its inward essence the life is one. Just as the monk by his voluntary self-denial is seeking to affirm the intrinsic goodness and beauty of God’s creation, so also is each married Christian required to be in some measure an ascetic. The way of negation and the way of affirmation are interdependent, and every Christian is called to follow both ways at once.
In the second place, the Triodion should not be misconstrued in a Pelagian sense.If the Lenten texts are continually urging us to greater personal efforts, this should not be taken as implying that our progress depends solely upon the exertion of our own will. On the contrary, whatever we achieve in the Lenten fast is to be regarded as a free gift of grace from God. The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete leaves no doubt at all on this point:
I have no tears, no repentance, no compunction;
But as God do Thou Thyself, O Saviour, bestow them on me. 17
In the third place, our fasting should not be self-willed but obedient. When we fast, we should not try to invent special rules for ourselves, but we should follow as faithfully as possible the accepted pattern set before us by Holy Tradition. This accepted pattern, expressing as it does the collective conscience of the People of God, possesses a hidden wisdom and balance not to be found in ingenious austerities devised by our own fantasy. Where it seems that the traditional regulations are not applicable to our personal situation, we should seek the counsel of our spiritual father – not in order legalistically to secure a ‘dispensation’ from him, but in order humbly with his help to discover what is the will of God for us. Above all, if we desire for ourselves not some relaxation but some piece of additional strictness, we should not embark upon it without our spiritual father’s blessing. Such has been the practice since the early centuries of the Church’s life:
Abba Antony said: ‘I know of monks who fell after much labor and lapsed into madness, because they trusted in their own work and neglected the commandment that says: “Ask your father, and he will tell you.'” (Deut. 32: 7)
Again he said: ‘So far as possible, for every step that a monk takes, for every drop of water that he drinks in his cell, he should consult the gerontes, in case he makes some mistake in this.’ 18
These words apply not only to monks but also to lay people living in the ‘world’, even though the latter may be bound by a less strict obedience to their spiritual father. If proud and willful, our fasting assumes a diabolical character, bringing us closer not to God but to Satan. Because fasting renders us sensitive to the realities of the spiritual world, it can be dangerously ambivalent: for there are evil spirits as well as good.
In the fourth place, paradoxical though it may seem, the period of Lent is a time not of gloom but of joyfulness. It is true that fasting brings us to repentance and to grief for sin, but this penitent grief, in the vivid phrase of St. John Climacus, is a ‘joy-creating sorrow’ . 19 The Triodion deliberately mentions both tears and gladness in a single sentence:
Grant me tears falling as the rain from heaven, O Christ,
As I keep this joyful day of the Fast. 20
It is remarkable how frequently the themes of joy and light recur in the texts for the first day of Lent:
With joy let us enter upon the beginning of the Fast.
Let us not be of sad countenance. . . .
Let us joyfully begin the all-hallowed season of abstinence;
And let us shine with the bright radiance of the holy commandments. . .
All mortal life is but one day, so it is said,
To those who labor with love.
There are forty days in the Fast;
Let us keep them all with joy. 21
~Mother Mary & Kallistos Ware, THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST: The True Nature of Fasting, Website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA), http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith9199.
17 Canticle Two, troparion 25″.
18 Apophtheomata Patrum, alphabetical collection (P.G. lxv), Antony 37 and 38. The Greek term geron (in Russian, starets) means literally an old man – old, not necessarily in years, but in spiritual experience and wisdom. He is one endowed by the Holy Spirit with the gift of seeing into men’s hearts and offering them guidance.
19 The Ladder of Paradise, Step 7, title.
20 Vespers for Monday in the first week.
21 All these quotations are from Matins for the first Monday.
