To avoid turning Lent into hard and senseless
weeks of diet, one should keep several simple rules. The aim of a fast is to
bend our body to our soul (to restore the right hierarchy of soul and body), to
multiply love, to sharpen attention to our spiritual life, to train our will
and gain our powers for spiritual fight.
1.
“Always be happy, pray all the time, be thankful for everything”
The temptation to fall into despair is strong. “How
can I live without tasty food? No more entertainments! How long the services
are!” In fact, there is no reason for despair. Long services are at the same
time the examples of middle-aged spiritual poetry, philosophical reflections on
the human’s place in eternity, feeling of unity with other people praying in
the church as well as communion with God. Often we can face the other side of
the Lenten despair: “I cannot fast according to the statue. I miss services. I
get distracted by secular vanity.” Remember that God needs our heart, not our
legs or stomach. He sees in a soul the desire to serve Him, and He sees the
weaknesses, too. This constant recollection about God will become our constant
joy about Him.
2. Keep
praying!
Of course, there is no need for us to get on the way
of hesychasm. Still, we can try to get half a foot closer to perfection. We
need to devote more time to prayer than we do usually. We should be more
attentive during services – sometimes it might be useful to take a book with
the texts of services. We should perform the prayer rule more thoroughly –
leave your computer half an hour earlier and read the evening prayers. Add the
prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. While on the way, read or listen to Psalter. It
is rather useful to fight against numerous temptations during Great Lent with
prayer: when you feel angry or get despaired you can cope with this condition
with the help of short Jesus’ prayer.
3. Church
prayer
If we did
not manage to organize our life in a way that we can only eat permitted foods,
read the entire prayer rule or just pray during the day because of the everyday
routine, the church comes to our rescue. During Great Lent, Divine services are
performed every day in monasteries and many parish churches in big cities. We
can go to church before or after work and stay at least for a part of the
service. This will help to tune on a completely different from the secular
environment mood. If we speak of Great lent, we should point out that there are
certain services for which we could even take a day off. These are the Great
Canon of St. Andrew of Crete during the first four days of Great Lent, the
reading of the entire Canon of St. Andrew of Crete on the Wednesday evening
during the fifth week, akathist to the Mother of God on Friday, and the
services of the Holy Week. It is advisable to attend the Liturgy of
Presanctified Gifts at least once during Great Lent.
4. “Open
to me the doors of repentance, O Life-giver!”
It is known that it is not God who needs fast, but we.
For example, Great Lent consists of two parts: the Lent itself and the Holy Week. The
Church offers us to read the Great Canon twice during Lent for good reason.
Every Saturday after the all-night vigil, we can hear the chant “Open to me the
doors of repentance, O Life-giver!” for good reason. Three weeks before Great
Lent the Church appeals for repentance with the parable about the Publican and
Pharisee, and the recalling of the Last judgement and Adam’s expulsion. We need
these 40 days of Lent exactly for repentance. If you are not going to repent,
then there is no need to fast. It will be just a waste of your health.
5. Watch
your health
If you feel that your health is getting
worse during Lent, you should discuss the degree of your abstinence with your
spiritual father. If you have any diseases of the stomach or metabolic dysfunction,
you cannot fast in full or partial accordance with the Church statue just
because you want to. Today even some monasteries do not fast with only dry food; so, the
Lord will not judge a working person who has health problems, too. Gastric ulcer
will not bring you closer to the Lord. In fact, it can even distance you from
God. The border between pure desire to follow the Church canons and the pride
for your personal efforts is rather thin.
6. Eyes
on your own plate
“I boast when I fast, and I still boast when I do not
fast”, - writes St. John Climacus in his “Ladder”. “Boasting while fasting” is
dangerous and goes hand in hand with judging others. Your brother eats fish
while you are on bread and water? Not your business. He drinks milk while you
do not even put sugar in tea? You have no idea about the condition of his
organism. He has eaten a sausage and is going to partake of Holy Communion next
morning while you have begun the Eucharistic fast even before the all-night
vigil? This concerns only him and the priest who lets him to take part in the
sacrament. “Boasting while not-fasting” is more delicate passion. In the
present-day world, there is such a character as a publican who is boasting
because he is not a Pharisee. In this case, we can observe another tendency: he
does not eat oil – but I make hundred prostrations at home before going to bed!
He does not take any alcohol – but I repent every weekend! Here we can say only
what children in kindergarten are said: “Eyes on your own plate”.
7. Man
does not live by bread alone
Think less about food. Fast is not about changing your
food regime. Vegetarians do not eat animal food at all but it neither brings
them closer to God nor keeps them from Him, just like the Apostle said. The
continuation of this well-known phrase is, “but with any word of God” – it suits
perfectly to the period of Great Lent, when we pay special attention to reading
Bible, which is the word of God. There is a tradition to read full Gospel as
well as it will be useful to read the teachings of Holy Fathers: “Ladder”,
Philokalia, explanations of Gospel and so on.
8. Hurry
to do good
Concentration on our personal spiritual condition must
not turn into negligence towards other people. Fast is supposed to develop in
us both love towards God and love towards our neighbor. St. John Chrysostom
offered to donate the money saved during Lent to people in need. What is more, during
Great Lent there is no need to stop communication with those people who can
need it – a pregnant friend, a sick neighbor, a lonely relative. A short talk
with these people over a cup of tea is not just entertainment but helping
others.
9. Loving
people without pleasing people
Good attitude towards our neighbors can sometimes lead
to such an unpleasant thing as people pleasing. In fact, there is no good
attitude in it at all, while there is personal flabbiness and dependence on the
opinion of other people. During Great
Lent, this passion becomes especially sharp. “Let’s meet on Friday after work
and go to a café!” your friend says, and here you are ordering a cake with her:
I don’t want to offend her! “Come to us on Saturday evening!” your neighbors say,
and you are going to miss the evening service… “Have one more piece of chicken
if you don’t want to hurt my feelings!” your relative says capriciously, and
here one can even hide behind respectful attitude towards older people.
However, it will be a wickedness. Unwillingness to come into conflict is not
always connected with love towards others. To get rid of the sin of people
pleasing we can recall the advice by St. Paisios the Hagiorite: we should conceal
our personal fasts in order not to fast for show, while the fast for the whole
Church is being strong in our faith. We should not only strive to respect other
people, but make others respect our faith, too. Quite often, a polite
explanation is enough for people to understand your position. What is more,
most often it comes out that all our explanations are fanciful: a friend in a café
will not be confused by your empty espresso cup, your neighbors will be glad to
meet with you after the service, and your relative will be pleased to treat you
to potatoes with mushrooms.
10.
Follow Christ
Finally, the most important rule of Great Lent is to
remember about the aim of this period. Fast is a period of concentrated anticipation
of the feast to which it leads, such as Resurrection of Christ, Dormition of
the Mother of God and so on. If we speak of Great Lent, it should be an
anticipation of a hardworking person. We try to go through Lent together with
the Lord; together we will reach the grave of Lazarus; together we will enter
Jerusalem; we will listen to Him in the Temple and partake of Holy Communion
with His Apostles at His Last Supper; we will follow Him on His way of the
Cross; we will mourn on Golgotha with the Mother of God and His favorite
disciple John… Finally, together with the myrrh-bearing women we will come to
the opened Grave and will feel joy for He is not here. Together with them, we
will exclaim, “Christ is risen!”
Source: http://dishupravoslaviem.ru/post-10-pravil-pravoslavnogo-posta/
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