Lent and the Divine Life
“Fasting is a medicine.” — St. John Chrysostom
“The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” — Matthew 9:15
“What are you giving up for Lent?” While the question might be common in many Christian circles, it seems that answers to it are, well, increasingly creative. In fact, there are websites and books (with work sheets!) aplenty that offer “creative” suggestions for those trying to discern what needs to be given up, shut down, set aside, reduced, or eliminated altogether. And that’s fine, especially if it helps people take steps in spiritual growth.
But the emphasis, with few exceptions, is usually on technique—on what to do and how to do it. What is often missing, unfortunately, is a theological core and foundational vision of what Lent is and how it reveals truths about ultimate things.
The great Orthodox theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann, known especially for his books on liturgical theology, addressed these fundamental truths in his wonderful book Great Fast (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1969), published over fifty years ago. What he seeks to do, right from the very opening page, is to present a challenging, even surprising at times, understanding of the season, beginning with the basic need for repentance. Schmemann notes that our lives are usually so hectic we “simply assume that all we have to do during Lent is abstain from certain foods, cut down on ‘entertainment’ ”—or, in today’s terms, social media—“go to Confession, be absolved by the priest” and then go on our way. Lent, Schmemann insists, is a “school of repentance” as well as a spiritual journey, the destination of which is Easter, the “Feast of Feasts.”
This is, of course, hardly news to serious believers. But Schmemann is only beginning, for he dives deep and then deeper, sometimes to the point that the reader may feel the need to come to the surface, as it were, gasping for air. One of the many wonderful qualities of the book is its direct and unblinking consideration of death (a topic that Schmemann wrote of often), and the fact—and it is, sadly, a fact, as I know from my own life—that we often fail to really see and celebrate Christ’s Resurrection “as something that happened and still happens to us” (emphasis in original). Put another way, we fail to live the divine life gifted to us at baptism. We let it slowly fade away from sloth and distraction; we watch it crash into the rocks of lust and pride, disappearing into the dark waters of our despair and selfishness. In our weakness, we forget about the divine life; we become lukewarm, or worse. Schmemann, as he does so often, put this in stark, harrowing terms:
We manage to forget even death and then, all of a sudden, in the midst of our ‘enjoying life’ it comes to us: horrible, inescapable, senseless. We may from time to time acknowledge and confess our various ‘sins,’ yet we cease to refer our life to that new life which Christ reveals and gives to us. Indeed, we live as if He never came. This is the only real sin, the sin of all sins, the bottomless sadness and tragedy of our nominal Christianity.
