First Lenten Email

During the Church's major fasting periods I send emails to my non-Orthodox friends. Most of them think Lent and Advent are just plain weird. It is my hope that the emails change their mids about that. I don't usually post those emails here because, I think, all of the readers of this blog are Orthodox and know this stuff already. But beginning with this Lent I will post the texts of the emails here, too.

----
Hi. Just as I do during Advent, I send out messages during Lent.

Aside from the Wednesday and Friday fasts, Lent is the only one of the Church’s fasts that is of Apostolic origin. Originally, the fast was only for people preparing for baptism on Pascha and it varied in length according to local custom. (There is a very interesting late 2nd century letter written from the Bishop of Lyons to the Bishop of Rome that discusses some of these differences.) In some cities the fast was kept as 1, 2, or 3 days with no food at all. In some the fast was kept for 40 hours. In other cities the week from Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday was kept as Lent. In some cities it was kept for 40 days as a fast from luxurious food such as meat or olive oil. (The humble lentil gets its name from the season). So while the overall idea of Lent was universal from the start of the Church the way Lent was observed was not universal.

This local variation is the occasion for a very famous saying. In the 5th Century St. Monica was a member of the church in Milan. Milan was what I think of as a hard-core church. They not only kept the Wednesday and Friday fasts but it was their practice to fast on Saturdays, too. When St. Monica visited Rome she was surprised to see that the Christians there did not observe a Saturday fast. Returning home, she asked her bishop, St. Ambrose, what she should do. He told her: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

For both eastern and western Christians Lent is a time of increased prayer and almsgiving but the actual days and methods of fasting were never identical.
Western Christians: 40 days (skipping Sundays, for the obvious reason) of fasting from some kind of food, increased prayers and almsgiving from Ash Wednesday until Easter. I’m not sure, but I think western Christians do pilgrimages during Lent, too.
Eastern Christians: Lent begins at Forgiveness Vespers 40 days before Palm Sunday (Holy Week is a fasting period too, but is not thought of as Lent) and includes Sundays but for the obvious reason the fast is relaxed on Sundays: alcohol and olive oil may be consumed on Sundays.

Because I am an Orthodox Lent begins for me on this coming Sunday. (But last Sunday was our carne-vale. We like to move into things gradually.). It is a physically demanding service but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Below is an essay (originally broadcast on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered, March 2, 1998) by Frederica Mathews-Green that explains what the service is about better than I ever will be able to.


----
On the first night of Lent, as Vespers comes to an end, my husband turns from the altar. He asks everyone to form a circle around the interior of the church, and when we’re in place, the person next to him—in this case, our son David—steps over to face his dad. My husband crosses himself, bows to David, then says, "Forgive me, my brother, for any way I have sinned against you. " David says, "I forgive you," and they embrace. Then it’s David’ s turn to bow to his dad and ask the same question, and receive the same forgiveness and embrace.
The ancient rite of forgiveness has begun. David steps to the next person in line to repeat the exchange, and a different parishoner faces my husband; before the evening is over every single person here will have asked for and received forgiveness from every other.
Orthodox Christians have done this for centuries, every year on the first night of Lent, to cleanse past wounds and allow a fresh start. When I next look up I see David embracing his younger brother Stephen. Where David is quiet-natured, a cool stream, Stephen is a geyser, full of passionate opinion, wide-flinging love and, not infrequently, anger. There were things to be forgiven there.
At last the rite has reached my point in line, and one at a time I bow to people I worship with every week, looking each one in the eye. Each moment is intimate, and I feel on the wobbly border between embarassment, laughter and tears. When I ask 12-year-old Melanie to forgive me, she says, "Not that you’ve done anything, but okay." Basil is giving out enveloping bear hugs with exclamations of "Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus!" Down the line, worshippers dip and bend as in a country dance.
I come to my daughter Megan, who will be eighteen in a few days. She has made it safely to adulthood past an adolescence that had it rocky places; yes, there are things to forgive here too. I bow to her and manage to say, past the lump in my throat, "Megan, please forgive me for any way that I have offended you." I could think of a million mistakes I had made. She looks at me, her lashes wet, and says, "I forgive you, Mom." Then she bends to touch the floor and stands again, and says to me, "Please forgive me, Mom, for everything."
Can a mother do such a thing? You bet. A moment later we are in a marshmallowy embrace.
Soon we are headed across the parking lot, the boys racing ahead. Megan puts her arm around me as we amble along, and I look up at a black sky spattered with stars. From this night to Easter morning a desert stretches, but it has begun with light.