Weekly Update
Dear friends,
As we approach Lent, people often think about what it is they are giving up for it. Maybe it’s chocolate, meat, carbonated drinks, alcohol, or some other food item. Some people take on additional disciplines of some kind like praying the Daily Office daily, going to midweek Eucharists, making greater charitable contributions, or reading some kind of daily devotional. I had a friend in university who decided to go to the gym daily over Lent. Whatever it is though, people usually go into it with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
I am not going to discount Lenten disciplines at all; I find they can be a useful thing to help us shed away the distractions of our lives to help orient our hearts towards God as the source of all. But I sometimes joke that Lent gives people a
chance to restart their lapsed New Year’s resolutions, because like many resolutions people go into them with great intentionality, but fall short quickly. I have done this myself multiple times. In 2022 I decided I would do an at-home Ignatian spiritual retreat over Lent with different meditations over the course of Lent. As it turns out, I often fall asleep when attempting to meditate, and I eventually abandoned it as things got busier as Holy Week approached. Naturally, I felt guilt about it, but that’s life.
Lenten disciplines and fasts are difficult, and I have come to realize that the difficulty is kind of the point. We are either denying ourselves things we take for granted in our lives, or we take on greater tasks that we normally do, and we inevitably stumble. We stumble because we are human; our sheer effort alone to reach God is not enough, and we need and depend on God to find that grace to both help us accomplish those things we seek to do and grace to help us accept when something cannot be done by our own power. If we encounter God in the season of Lent, then whatever it is we seek to do has already been successful.
The Orthodox Christian tradition has a more standardized approach to the Lenten fast. Traditionally this means no meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil during weekdays, with allowances for wine and oil on Saturdays and Sundays, and fish on specific feast days like Annunciation and Palm Sunday. This stricter approach is a challenge for people, and while exceptions are made for people for various reasons, like in the Western tradition many people fall short. So, whether it is a lighter fast or a stricter fast, people will fall short.
But the reason why I brought up the Orthodox tradition here is to then highlight how that tradition still says God welcomes those who both succeed and fall short during Lent. It is their tradition that at the Easter liturgy the priest reads the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom (347-407). Here St. John Chrysostom uses the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) to explain that God rewards both those who were consistent throughout Lent and those who were not with the same grace and celebration. He then says:
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry; partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of his goodness!
What you choose to do, or not do, over Lent is up to you. My prayer for you this Lent more than anything else is that you find and grow closer to God during this season and allow God to continue to transform your lives and hearts. Maybe you are able to stay consistent, maybe you don't, but no matter what, know that God is still there and present in your lives, and that at the end of Lent you will always have a seat at his Paschal Feast.
Yours in Christ
James+
The Rev. Dr. James Shire
Associate Priest