Lent: A season of healing for our body & soul
O Lord and Master of my Life, drive from me the spirit of sloth, despondency, lust for power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of moderation, humility, patience and love to your servant.
O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults, and not to judge my brother, for blessed are you unto ages of ages. Amen.
-Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian
For our busy, anxious, unruly souls, the Church offers the medicine of prayer, fasting and acts of generosity through a season of inner healing called Lent. The 40 days before Easter Sunday is set aside as a time of repentance, simplicity and respite in preparation for a great celebration of Christ’s resurrection. During Lent, we are invited to quiet ourselves to a level where we become re-sensitized to the parts of our body and soul that are hurting, unhealed, and continue to cause harm to ourselves, our loved ones and to the world. This is especially necessary in times of chaos and fear in our external world. As one wise commentator says, “We are trying to acquire a strong spiritual stomach that will digest all types of food. This spiritual stomach will not be harmed or destroyed by any kind of food, but will digest everything…” If you feel the troubles in your personal life or in the world around you are too much for you to stomach, the Spirit may be calling you to observe Lent with us this year.
While Lent has acquired a reputation as a hard, ascetic practice of self-deprivation beginning in the midst of winter, the invitation to repent is meant to re-energize our hope and vitality as we see spring on the horizon. It’s a time to prepare the soil of our souls for new life to grow. The Eastern Church uses the word “passions” to describe the habits of thought and emotion that lead us to evil. They are akin to the “weeds” Jesus famously describes in his parable which can choke out the Word of God planted within us. We all wrestle with “passions” such as despondency, anger, lust, power, greed, gluttony, which inflame our ego and squelch our consciousness of God and other people. The wisdom of past generations shows that we cannot master these destructive tendencies simply through better theological reflection or other intellectual efforts. We overcome them, like Jesus did in the desert, through fully bringing our body and soul before God. In the most basic sense, this can happen by changing our relationship to our most basic passion or bodily hunger - food.
“If we can discipline ourselves to go without certain kinds of food, we can hopefully discipline ourselves so that we can go without certain kinds of behavior that are spiritually destructive. Thus, fasting is not about giving up something only to get it back. Fasting is about getting control of our passions, maintaining control over them, and ultimately giving control of ourselves to God,” writes Father Stavros Akrotirianakis, of St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, Tampa.
In an article outlining the traditional fast in the Greek Orthodox Church, Father Stavros goes on to helpfully advise those new to the Lenten fast to take it slow the first time around. Consider abstaining from meat, dairy, alcohol and other rich foods on certain days of the week, or just focus on rooting out harmful digital addictions. The goal is not to see how long you can go without certain comforts, but to reinvigorate your inner life by making small but lasting changes.
Fasting is not the full purpose of Lent. The traditional Lenten practice is described as a three-legged stool of Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving. The fast is a first step to free our attention from self-indulgence so we can make room for other more life-giving things - the gifts of the Holy Spirit. With our attention freed - as well as some extra money from not eating and drinking as much - we can refocus our extra energy on the two greatest commands - love of God and love of others - through prayer and generosity to others.
What might we gain from 40 days during which we gradually spend less and less time thinking about food, or scrolling through social media, or watching Netflix docudramas? What if we simply gained back time with God where we do less, rest more, sit with friends and family and listen to them without distraction?
I often think I can do all the things I’m already doing and still find the space to really see others or to attend to the wounds I quietly carry around. But I can’t. For my own family, our prayer for this Lent Season is to lower the volume and hurry and intensity in our household. I know this won’t be possible if we don’t take the time to plan ahead and let go of some things over the next couple months.
Many of us have felt the pace of life continuously speeding up. Almost five years ago, Covid-19 ground our lives to a halt, but that didn’t last long in the grand scheme of things. And now again feels like we’re hurtling headlong into a very tumultuous future as a nation and world, all while our kids keep getting older, babies are born, grandparents die, and the Kingdom of God feels faded and far off.
It’s likely that we will in the coming weeks, months or years start to be molded in one of two ways - we will work harder and more frantically to feel like we are “self-sufficient” and have done enough to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the pain and suffering in and around us. This is the passion of pride, which leads to callous hard-heartedness. Or we will give in to despair and conclude that the situation is hopeless after all. This is the sin of sloth and despondency. These are default reactions. Fight or flight.
During Lent, we have the opportunity to join Jesus and the saints in taking a different path. When we become still enough to stop fighting and stop hiding from things, we can give space for the Holy Spirit to mold us in a very different way. In this state of consciousness, we simultaneously recognize our weakness and frailty - the endless hunger and needs of our body and soul as well as the endless evil of the world - while resolutely placing ourselves into God’s hands and trusting in His power.
Giving such attention to things we find troubling or tedious requires a certain spiritual tenacity and courage. This traditional Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian from the 4th century captures the spirit of courageous dependence on God necessary for this prolonged journey. Even if you cannot commit yourself to a formal practice of prayer, fasting and generosity, consider starting with speaking this prayer aloud with assertiveness each day until we celebrate Easter together:
O Lord and Master of my Life, drive from me the spirit of sloth, despondency, lust for power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of moderation, humility, patience and love to your servant.
O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults, and not to judge my brother, for blessed are you unto ages of ages. Amen.
-Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian
For information on developing your own practices, see our Lent Season Practices.