Attending liturgical services, fasting, and even praying at regular intervals do not exhaust the lenten effort. Or rather, in order to be effective and meaningful, they need the support of our whole life. They need, in other terms, a "style of life" which would not be in contradiction with them, would not lead to a "split" existence. In the past, in Orthodox countries, such support was given by society itself: it was that complex of customs, external changes, legislation, and public and private observances which is covered by the Russian word "byt" and which is partly rendered by the English word culture. During Lent, the whole society accepted a certain rhythm of life, certain rules, which kept reminding the individual members of that society of the lenten season. In Russia, for example, one could not forget Lent if only because of a special lenten church bell ringing; theaters were closed; and, in more ancient times, the courts suspended their activities. By themselves, all those externals were obviously unable to force man into repentance or toward a more active religious life. But they created a certain atmosphere—a kind of lenten climate—in which personal effort was made easier. Being weak, we need external reminders, symbols, signs. Of course there is always the danger that these external symbols may become ends in themselves and instead of being mere reminder become in popular opinion the very content of Lent. This danger has already been mentioned above when we spoke of external customs and observances replacing genuine personal effort. Properly understood, however, these customs constitute that "belt" which connects the spiritual effort to the totality of life.
We are not living in an Orthodox society and no lenten "climate" can therefore be created on a social level. Lent or no Lent, the world around us and of which we are an integral part does not change. Consequently, this requires from us a new effort of rethinking the necessary religious relationship between the "external" and "internal." The spiritual tragedy of secularism is that it forces us into a real religious "schizophrenia"—dividing our life into two parts: the religious and the secular, which are less and less interdependent. Thus a spiritual effort is needed in order to transpose the traditional customs and reminders, the very means of our lenten effort. In a tentative and, of necessity, schematic way, one can consider this effort in terms first of home, and second, out of home existence.
In the Orthodox world view, the home and the family constitute the first and most important area of Christian life, of application of Christian principles to daily existence. It is certainly the home, the very style and spirit of family life, and not the school, not even the Church, that shapes our fundamental world view, that shapes in us that fundamental orientation of which we may not even be aware for a long time, but which ultimately will become a decisive factor. Dostoevsky’s "staretz" Zosima—in The Brothers Karamazov—says: "A man who from his childhood can remember good things is saved for his whole life." It is very significant that he makes this remark after recalling his mother taking him to the Presanctified Liturgy, the beauty of the service, the unique lenten melody of "Let my prayer be set forth in Thy sight as incense...". The wonderful effort of religious education which is being made today in our church schools will mean very little unless it is rooted in the home and family life. What then could and should be done during Lent at home? Since it is impossible to cover here all aspects of family life, I will concentrate on one of them.
Everyone will no doubt agree that the whole style of family existence has been radically altered by radio and television. These media of "mass communication" permeate today our whole life. One does not have to "go out" in order to "be out." The whole world is permanently here within my reach. And, little by little, the elementary experience of living within an inner world, of the beauty of that "interiority," simply disappears from our modern culture. If it 1s not television, it is music. Music has ceased to be something one listens to; it is fast becoming a kind of "background sound" for conversation, reading, writing, etc. In fact, this need for permanent music reveals the incapacity of modern man to enjoy silence, to understand it not as something negative, as a mere absence, but precisely as a presence and the condition for all real presence. If the Christian of the past lived in great measure in a silent world, giving him ample opportunity for concentration and inner life, today's Christian has to make a special effort to recover that essential dimension of silence which alone can put us in contact with higher realities. Thus the problem of radio and TV during Lent is not a marginal one but in many ways a matter of spiritual life or death. One must realize that it is impossible simply to split our life between the "bright sadness" of Lent and "The Late Show." Those two experiences are incompatible and one eventually kills the other. It is very likely, however, that unless a special effort is made "The Late Show" has a greater chance against the "bright sadness" than vice versa. A first "custom" to be suggested, therefore, is that the use of TV and radio be drastically reduced during Lent. We do not dare to hope here for a "total" fast but only for an "ascetical" one which, as we know, means first of all a change of diet and its reduction. There is nothing wrong, for example, with continuing to watch the news or selecting serious, interesting, and intellectually or spiritually enriching programs. What must be stopped during Lent is the "addiction" to TV—the transformation of man into a vegetable in an armchair, glued to the screen and passively accepting anything coming from it. When I was a child (this was the pre-TV era) my mother used to lock the piano during the first, fourth, and seventh weeks of Lent. I remember this more vividly than the long lenten services, and even today a radio playing during Lent shocks me as almost a blasphemy. This personal recollection 1s only an illustration of the impact some very external decisions can have on a child's soul. And what is involved here is not a mere isolated custom or rule but the experience of Lent as a special time, as something which is constantly present and must not be lost, mutilated, or destroyed. Here also however, as with fasting, a mere absence or abstinence is not sufficient; it must have its positive counterpart.
The silence created by the absence of the world's noises made available by the media of mass communication is to be filled with positive content. If prayer feeds our soul, our intellect also needs its food for it is precisely the intellect of man which is being destroyed today by the ceaseless hammering of TV, radio, newspapers, pictorial magazines, etc. What we suggest then, in addition to the purely spiritual effort, is an intellectual effort. How many masterpieces, how many wonderful fruits of human thought, imagination, and creativity we neglect in our life simply because it is so much easier returning home from work in a state of physical and mental fatigue to push the TV button or to plunge into the perfect vacuum of an illustrated magazine. But suppose we plan our Lent? Suppose we make in advance a reasonable list of books to be read during Lent? Not all of them must necessarily be religious books; not all people are called to be theologians. Yet there is so much implicit "theology" in certain literary masterpieces, and everything which enriches our intellect, every fruit of true human creativity, is blessed by the Church and, properly used, acquires a spiritual value. In the preceding chapter I have mentioned that the fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent are dedicated to the commemoration of two great teachers of Christian spirituality: St. John of the Ladder and St. Mary of Egypt_. Let us understand this as a broad indication that what the Church wants us to do during Lent is to seek the enrichment of our spiritual and intellectual inner world, to read and to meditate upon those things which are most likely to help us recover that inner world and its joy. Of that joy, of the true vocation of man, the one that is fulfilled inside and not outside, the "modern world" gives us no taste today; yet without it, without the understanding of Lent as a journey into the depth of our humanity, Lent loses its meaning.
Secondly, what could be the meaning of Lent during the long hours we spend outside of home—commuting, sitting at our desks, taking care of our professional duties, meeting our colleagues and friends? Although no clear-cut "recipe" can be given here as in any other area, some very general considerations are possible. In the first place, Lent is a good time to measure the incredibly superficial character of our relations with men, things, and work. The "keep smiling" and "take it easy" slogans are truly the great "commandments" which we joyfully keep, and they mean: don't get involved, don't question, don't deepen your relations with human beings; keep the rules of the game which combine a friendly attitude with total indifference; think of everything in terms of material gains, benefits, advancement; be, in other terms, a part of the world which, while constantly using the great words "freedom," "responsibility," "care," etc., de facto follows the materialistic principle that man is what he eats! Lent is the time for the search for meaning: meaning of my professional life in terms of vocation; meaning of my relationship to other persons; meaning of friendship; meaning of my responsibility. There is no job, no vocation, which cannot be "transformed"—be it only a little—in terms not of greater efficiency or better organization but in those of human value. It is the same effort of "interiorization" of all our relations that is needed here, for we are free human beings who have become (without very often knowing it) prisoners of systems that progressively de-humanize the world. And if our faith has any meaning, it is to be related to life in all its complexity. Thousands of people think that necessary changes come only from outside, from revolutions and change in external conditions. It is for us Christians to prove that in reality everything comes from inside—from faith and life according to faith. The Church, when she entered the Greco-Roman world, did not denounce slavery, did not call for a revolution. It was her faith, her new vision of man and life that progressively made slavery impossible. One "saint'—and saint here means very simply a man taking his faith seriously all the time—will do more for changing the world than a thousand printed programs. The saint is the only true revolutionary in this world.
Finally, and this is our last general remark, Lent is the time to control our speech. Our world is incredibly verbal and we are constantly flooded by words which have lost their meaning and therefore their power. Christianity reveals the sacredness of the word—a truly divine gift to man. For this reason our speech is endowed with tremendous power either positive or negative. For this reason also we shall be judged on our words: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37). To control speech is to recover its seriousness and its sacredness, to understand that sometimes an innocent "joke," which we proffered without even thinking about it, can have disastrous results—can be that last "straw" which pushes a man into ultimate despair and destruction. But the word can also be a witness. A casual conversation across the desk with a colleague can do more for communicating a vision of life, an attitude toward other men or toward work, than formal preaching. It can sow the seeds of a question, of the possibility of a different approach to life, the desire to know more. We have no idea how, in fact, we constantly influence one another by our words, by the very "tonality" of our personality. And ultimately men are converted to God not because someone was able to give brilliant explanations, but because they saw in him that light, joy, depth, seriousness, and love which alone reveal the presence and the power of God in the world.
And thus if Lent is, as we have said at the very beginning, the recovery by man of his faith, it is also his recovery of life, of its divine meaning, of its sacred depth. It is by abstaining from food that we rediscover its sweetness and learn again how to receive it from God with joy and gratitude. It is by "slowing down" on music and entertainment, on conversation and superficial socializing, that we rediscover the ultimate value of human relationships, human work, human art. And we rediscover all this because very simply we rediscover God Himself—because we return to Him and in Him to all that which He gave us in His infinite love and mercy.
And thus, on Easter night we sing:
Today are all things filled with light, Heaven and earth and the places under the earth; All creation does celebrate the Resurrection of Christ On whom it is founded....
Of this expectation, do not deprive us, O Lover of Man!