The Great Lent
choosing the journey
It was in preparing for writing for Lent that I was introduced to Alexander Shmemann’s “Great Lent: Journey to Pascha” through the following quote:
Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.
I agree with his assessment, that formal obligations can mean alienation from the “something else” in Lent. It’s easy to lose the meaning behind these obligations that we take on. When someone who isn’t familiar with Lent looks it up, they are likely to see talk of “giving up something for Lent.” Many times, the things being given up are vices, or things maybe we shouldn’t really be doing in the first place. But why? Are we giving these up as a mirror or nod to Christ’s own sacrifice? Maybe. But can giving up chocolate or smoking even come close to that great sacrifice - God sacrificing his own Son to redeem us and restore our relationship with him? To me, it seems a bit empty. Schmemman even calls them “incomprehensible ‘rubrics’” when considered separately.
But what if, when considered as a whole with the sobriety of Lenten liturgy, we find a glimpse into the “bright sadness” of Lent?
The quiet sadness of Lenten services, the lack of music, the removal of the alleluias, the length and monotony of the penitential Great Litany - what if all of these, in combination with what we chose to remove from our life, create room? As Schmemman points out,
It is as if we were reaching a place to which the noises and the fuss of life, of the street, of all that which usually fills our days and even nights, have no access - a place where they have no power. All that which seemed so tremendously important to us as to fill our mind, that state of anxiety which has virtually become our second nature, disappear somewhere and we begin to feel free, light, and happy. It is not the noisy and superficial happiness which comes and goes twenty times a day and is so fragile and fugitive; it is a deep happiness which comes not from a single and particular reason, but from another soul having, in the words of Dostoevsky, touched “another world.” …We understand that it is simply impossible to pass from our normal state of mind made up almost entirely of fuss, rush, and care, into this new one without first “quieting down,” without restoring in ourselves a measure of inner stability.
We need the quietness and monotony of Lent in order to quiet our minds and our souls. It is the rare person who can instantly find quiet and peace. Most of us take quite a while to disengage from all the things vying for our attention every moment of the day. We might disengage with the first thing or two, but it’s only to have another pop up into its place. It’s this peeling back and setting aside of each attention-grabbing layer that allows us to slowly remove our attention away from ourselves and to lift our eyes to see the brightness of Easter on the horizon.
We experience a transfiguration of our own. We move from monotony to peace. From quiet to lightness. Lent can become a mysterious liberation from all the things that pull us away from God.
And as we set aside these attention-grabbing things, we create room to consider - does this really serve me? Is this something that is edifying? Is the lightness I feel without it worth more to me?
This setting aside always reminds me of the poem Madeleine L’Engle quoted in her book, Meet the Austins1:
Indwelling
If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.But thou are all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me."
Maybe this is the real reason for Lent: we need an extended season each year to empty ourselves of self so that we have room for God, and so that we may realize that journey of sad brightness: “the sadness of my exile, of the waste I have made of my life; the brightness of God’s presence and forgiveness, the joy of the recovered desire for God, the peace of the recovered home.” (A. Schmemann)
She mis-attributed it to Sir Thomas Brown, but the actual author is T.E. Brown.