Holy Trinity Orthodox Church

by Fr. Lawrence Farley

“A tough week.”

This is how President Obama described the week of April 14—a week that saw acts of terrorism in Boston and a tragic fire and explosion in Texas compounding the other challenges with which life is often filled. Boston also experienced the emotional roller-coaster of lockdown, manhunt, shoot-out, and arrest. A tough week indeed.

These words, however, could also be used to describe another week, long ago, that also was filled with emotion, fear, and death. I refer, of course, to the last week of our Lord’s earthly life.

The week was filled with danger, since it was well known that Jesus’ foes had recently tried to stone Him, a fate which He narrowly escaped (John 11:8). For this reason, His entry into the city had to be secretly pre-arranged, as did the place in the city where He would eat the Passover meal (Mark 11:1f, 14:12f), for if He left the safety of the public crowds, He risked arrest and execution (Mark 14:1-2).

That Passover meal, eaten with the Twelve in secrecy, was marked by fear. He predicted that one of them would betray Him, that He would have to leave them, that they would all deny Him and leave Him alone. As they ate the bread at the beginning of the meal, and as they drank the cup of wine afterward, He declared the bread and wine to be His body and His blood, broken and poured out. They did not know what it all could mean, but they knew talk of death when they heard it.

Then came the catastrophic night of betrayal and arrest, when one of their own inner circle acted as guide to His enemies, and when they all forsook Him and fled. Peter, initially trying to prove himself brave, tagged along later at a distance, only to find himself denying Christ over and over again, as the Lord had predicted. While the disciples scattered and cowered, their Lord was being tried and mocked and beaten by His own people at an illegal all-night trial. When daybreak came, He was handed over to Pilate.

By three o’clock in the afternoon it was all over.

Jesus hung dead on the cross, beaten, disgraced, abandoned by almost all. His adversaries were triumphant. For them it was the most satisfying Passover in a long time. But not for the disciples of the Lord. For them, it was a tough week.

This review of the first Holy Week can help us through our own tough weeks, for it teaches us that God does not save us from fearful suffering and death, but reveals His salvation in the midst of it. The fear-suffused and dark Passover supper would be later revealed as the eternal and joyful Mystic Supper, as the meal of death became the meal of life. The moment of supreme defeat and disgrace on Golgotha would become the cosmic victory of God, when He worked salvation in the midst of the earth.

This shows that all our suffering can be transmuted into joy, if we wait on God. Dark days may tempt us, calling us to despair, to give up on God. Judas gave up: he took a rope and hanged himself. We must not give up.

Despair called to Peter too, for after he denied his Lord time and again, he went out and wept bitterly (Mark 14:72). But, in the end, he did not heed the call to despair. Despite his almost unbearable pain, he persevered, and waited and did not give up.

With God it is always worth the wait. Christ came to Peter and restored him, accepting his repentance and calling him to once again take up his apostolic calling and leadership. He came to all the disciples, forgiving them, gathering them, healing their hearts and breathing His Spirit into them.

Holy Week may have ended with the Cross on Friday and the Tomb on Saturday. But it gave way to the Resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week and a sign of the timeless eighth day of eternity.

As we go through our lives and endure tough weeks, let us continue to wait on God. When day dawned that first Resurrection morn, all the pain of the past week faded with the passing darkness.

So it will prove for us.

Editor’s Note: Fr. Lawrence Farley is the priest in Langley, B.C., and is the author of many books and Ancient Faith Radio podcasts. This article originally appeared on oca.org.

by Fr. John Reeves

Many words can have more than one meaning. As I began to write this article the word “bore” came to mind, as in full bore. It’s a mechanical term referring to the maximum effort expended to get the most power out of a cylinder, or bore. Just as I was prepared to exhort everyone to put full effort into the remainder of the Fast, I thought of the other meaning of bore, as in to be bored! It made me think that for some, Lent might be approached more as a big bore, something to be endured, designed to take all the fun out of living and dining for forty days, and little else.

Let’s look at the two approaches. One presumes that there is indeed something to “get out” of Lent, that spiritual effort is required, but that in the end maximum benefits are the results. The Church certainly has this understanding. Manifold services are to be accompanied by fasting and additional personal prayer. It is a period which brings “great profit to the soul,” to quote from Lenten hymns.

The other approach, that Lent is a bore, views this time as the following rules and regulations, noting how strictly, or not, one fasts. Little emphasis is placed on prayer, the natural end of fasting. Therefore, attempting to fast can not only be a challenge but a “downer,” a meaningless exercise trying to stay on a semblance of an ecclesiastical diet, but nothing more. It becomes an end, in and of itself, and hence a spiritually insignificant practice.

Of course, the purpose of Orthodoxy is not to fast. It is to draw us into an ever closer relationship with God. During Lent, we have a dedicated, seasonal opportunity to do that, to be drawn ever closer to God by spending more time in prayer and worship and limiting the distractions of food and entertainment. The latter are not bad in and of themselves, but often become the focus of much of our lives.

The many opportunities for “extra” prayer and worship—Presanctified Liturgies, Memorial Saturdays, Mission Vespers—become a natural end of our fasting, if we are fasting to draw nearer to God. Without availing ourselves of them, without going “full bore”, however, limits Lent’s outcome, like underutilizing the potential power of an engine. We might fire on some cylinders, but not all. That’s when Lent becomes a big bore, something to endure at best, until “it’s over” at Pascha.

Clean Week was when we drained the crankcase and changed the oil at Forgiveness Vespers. Perhaps, we accompanied this by changing the timing on our spiritual engines. Or we might have adjusted our carburetors to accommodate a new spiritual regimen, a richer mixture of “fuel” and “air.” But unless we engage the disciplines of Lent fully, we are merely tinkering around in the garage, with an engine that might be idling nicely, but in a car that’s not going anywhere.

We don’t admire a car merely because it idles well, however. What we are really interested in is the ride. That takes more effort but it will demonstrate what the car was actually made for. Souls are like that, too. They aren’t made to idle, any more than cars are. Souls are made for action and movement. A Lenten discipline is a test track, a proving ground for the soul to reach its capacity.

For the rest of Lent, let the brake off and ease into drive. Don’t race the engine, but gradually increase the speed, the intensity of the spiritual effort. Lent won’t seem so boring, and we can make it to a fuller capacity, if not a wide open throttle, by Pascha.

Ultimately the biggest difference between “big bore” and “full bore” in Lent simply depends on the effort we put into it.