This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Life in the Fast Lane

Great and Holy Lent starts for Orthodox during Vespers this Sunday. The traditional Lenten fast begins. Adam A. J. DeVille's article in the latest issue of Touchstone, Life in the Fast Lane, pretty much captures my feelings:

The prospect of no meat (let alone no dairy or anything else) made me almost want to weep. With Chesterton, I believe that “Catholicism is a thick steak, a frosted stout, and a good cigar,” and the idea of giving up any of those was almost unbearable even to think about.

I figured I was in for a fiendishly difficult time and would scarcely make it through the first few days before throwing up my hands in disgust at my weakness.

Don't misunderstand. My fasting rule, should Father choose to bless it, will not be so rigorous as the author's. Of course, with my wife being pregnant, Father has pretty much refused anything that would add to the normal struggles of her pregnancy. I don't need to go into the details, but it's very minor.

Still, that being said, the thought of doing anything that involves denying my body of its cravings is, well, perhaps not frightening, but just darn unwelcome. I regret to say, my body pretty much gets its way when it comes to drink and diet. Do I have "the munchies"? A quick trip to the vending machine for some chips or a candy bar is an almost automatic reflex. Do I want to grab a burrito for supper as I head out to teach class, instead of the more healthy meal sitting in my lunch sack on the seat beside me? It's as good as done.

I can understand why there is a strong tradition in the Church, exemplified by St. Theophan the Recluse, which views the passions as an alien contagion in the body. It seems as if these passions know that I'm going to be taking more notice of them, that I am going to be quite intentionally battling them and denying them their way. And, at the risk of sounding a little bit unhinged, it seems clear to me they don't like it one bit.

If I can continue in this somewhat mad way of speaking, I think my body is taking their side. Yesterday, I failed in the fasting I was supposed to have done. It was as though my body, sensing the battle that would be fought on its ground in the coming days, recoiled from the coming mortification, took sides with the enemy, and held my will captive. The indulgence lay bitter in my belly the whole afternoon.

I'm being a bit melodramatic, of course. The body did not hold my will captive, nor did my body turn traitorous against me. No, I freely chose to join the betrayal. I am the one who recoiled from the fight. It was my will that freely chose to shirk my discipline and obligation. It was my will that chose to believe the lie that the earthly food was more sustaining than the heavenly food of God's will.

There is a lesson to Lenten fasting:

For if one can give up food, which the body absolutely requires to stay alive, then one can certainly give up the attachment to the sensual passions—which, contrary to our world, one does not need to indulge to stay alive. (As Evelyn Waugh once wrote, “People today say you cannot be happy unless your sex life is happy. That makes about as much sense as saying you cannot be happy unless your golf life is happy. It’s not only nonsense, it’s mischievous nonsense.”)

What one needs to stay alive is Christ. May we receive the gift of fasting as a powerful practice that unites, purifies, and strengthens us as the Body of Christ, enabling us to live more and more in and for him. In our day more than ever, we need to undertake a recovery of fasting, purifying ourselves and the Church, and in the process receiving the gift of unending joy at Pascha, where we may sing—in the words of the paschal tropar so beloved by Eastern Christians: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!”

Posted by Clifton at March 12, 2005 08:15 AM | TrackBack