The Shepherd, February 2009
THE COMING MONTH
THIS YEAR, the Great Feast of the Lord’s Meeting in the Temple (2nd /15th) falls on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, as if to emphasise that when, in repentance, we return to meet the Saviour, He already comes to meet us, as is indeed made clear in the parable itself. Because of this, the services for the festival and for the Sunday will be combined.
It is in the middle of the month (17th February / 2nd March) that we enter the Holy and Great Lent. Nowadays, because of the pressures of life (or more accurately, the pressures from below), many Orthodox Christians only observe this by slightly adjusting their diet. Many never witness a Lenten service because they only come to church on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, when the services are resurrectional. In this they suffer a great loss, because it takes an important dimension from their spiritual life. They are left with a kind of emasculated Orthodoxy, which generally means less and less to them as time goes on.
Of course, in the post-Christian society in which we live, many people can do little about this - they have jobs to keep, families to raise, mortgages to pay, etc, etc, - all the things that capitalism was designed to ensnare us by. However, because we cannot do much does not mean that we cannot do anything. That suggestion is one which the evil one often instills in us. If you cannot complete the marathon, it is better to travel 100 yards on the road than to do nothing at all. Try to attend at least some of the weekday Lenten services, especially those in the first week, and the fifth week. If you live too far from a church even to accomplish this, then at least buy a “Lenten Triodion,” and read the services at home. We, English speakers, have less excuse than anyone else in this regard, because now so many church books have been published in English and in an English, which although a little archaic, is readily accessible to us. Greeks and Slavs have their services in languages which are much more difficult for them to comprehend, if they are not trained (as most are not these days).
I am fortunate enough to be old enough to have had a Real Granny, - (there seem to be few of them these days, except in Eastern European families, and often they cannot fluently converse with grandchildren that have grown up in the West), - and one of her favorite sayings was: “As you sow, so shall you reap!” This was undoubtedly a folk paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 9:6: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” The Holy Apostle Paul was addressing the Corinthians about that fundamental Christian virtue of almsgiving, without which one can hardly call oneself a Christian, but his words have a wider application. In our Lenten struggle, if we do little, and make any excuse for doing little, we shall not greatly benefit spiritually. If we apply ourselves, and do the very best we can in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, then indeed we can expect a rich harvest spiritually, for the Lord Himself is the greatest of “Almsgivers.”
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