The prayer of the Church is always biblical—i.e., expressed in the language, images, and symbols of the Holy Scriptures. If the Bible contains the Divine Revelation to man, it is also man's inspired response to that Revelation and thus the pattern and the content of man's prayer, praise, and adoration. For example, thousands of years have passed since the Psalms were composed; yet when man needs to express repentance, the shock of his entire being at the challenge of divine mercy, he stil! finds the only adequate expression in the penitentia] Psalm beginning, "Have mercy on me, O God!” Every imaginable situation of man before God, the world, and other men, from the overwhelming joy of God's presence to the abysmal despair of man's exile, sin, and alienation has found its perfect expression in this unique Book which, for this reason, has always constituted the daily nourishment of the Church, the means of her worship and self-edification.
During Great Lent the biblical dimension of worship is given increased emphasis. One can say that the forty days of Lent are, in a way, the return of the Church into the spiritual situation of the Old Testament—the time before Christ, the time of repentance and expectation, the time of the "history of salvation" moving toward its fulfillment in Christ. This return is necessary because even though we belong to the time after Christ, and know Him, and have been “baptized into Him," we constantly fall away from the new life received from Him, and this means lapse again into the "old" time. The Church, on the one hand, is already "at home" for she is the "grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit"; yet, on the other hand, she is also "on her way" as the pilgrimage—long and difficult—toward the fulfillment of all things in God, the return of Christ and the end of all time.
Great Lent is the season when this second aspect of the Church, of her life as expectation and journey, is being actualized. It is here, therefore, that the Old Testament acquires its whole significance: as the Book not only of prophecies which have been fulfilled, but of man and the entire creation "on their way" to the Kingdom of God.
Two main principles govern the use of the Old Testament in lenten worship’: the "double reading" of the Psalter; and the lectio continua, i.e., the reading virtually in their totality of three books—Genesis, Isaiah and Proverbs.
Psalms have always occupied a central and indeed unique place in Christian worship.’ The Church sees in them not only the best, the most adequate and perfect expression of man’s prayer, repentance, adoration, and praise, but a true verbal icon of Christ and the Church, a revelation within the Revelation. For the Fathers, says an exegete of their writings, “only Christ and His Church pray, weep, and speak in this Book.” From the very beginning, the Psalms constituted, therefore, the very foundation of the Church’s prayer, her "natural language." They are used in worship first as "fixed Psalms," ie., as the permanent material of all daily services: the "evening Psalm" (Ps. 104) at Vespers; the Six Psalms (Psalms 3, 38, 63, 88, 103, 143), the Praises (Psalms 148, 149, 150) at Matins; and groups of three Psalms at the Hours, etc. From the Psalter are selected the prokeimena, verses for the alleluias, etc., for all feasts and commemorations of the liturgical year. And finally, the entire Psalter, divided into twenty parts or kathismata, is chanted in its totality every week at Vespers and Matins. It is this third use of the Psalter that is doubled during Lent; the Psalter is chanted not once but twice every week of Lent, and portions of it are included in the Third and Sixth Hours.
The "continuous reading" of Genesis, Isaiah and Proverbs has its origin at the time when Lent was still the main pre-baptismal season of the Church and lenten services were predominantly catechetical in their character, i.e., dedicated to the indoctrination of the catechumen. Each of the three books corresponds to one of the three basic aspects of the Old Testament: the history of God's activity in Creation, prophecy, and the ethical or moral teachings. The Book of Genesis gives, as it were, the "framework" of the Church's faith. It contains the story of Creation, of the Fall, and finally that of the promise and the beginning of salvation through God's Covenant with his chosen people. It conveys the three fundamental dimensions of the Church's belief in God as Creator, Judge, and Savior. It reveals the roots of the Christian understanding of man as created in the “image and likeness of God,” as falling away from God, and as remaining the object of divine love, care, and ultimately salvation. It discloses the meaning of history as the history of salvation leading to and fulfilled in Christ. It announces the mystery of the Church through the images and realities of the People of God, Covenant, Ark, etc. Isaiah is the greatest of all prophets and the reading of his book during Lent is meant to reveal once more the great mystery of salvation through the sufferings and sacrifices of Christ. Finally, the Book of Proverbs is the epitome of the ethical teachings of the Old Testament, of the moral law and wisdom—without whose acceptance man cannot understand his alienation from God and is unable therefore even to hear the good news of forgiveness through love and grace.
Lessons from these three books are read daily during Lent, Monday through Friday: Genesis and Proverbs at Vespers, and Isaiah at the Sixth Hour. And although Lent has long ago ceased to be the catechetical season of the Church, the initial purpose of these readings keeps its full significance. Our Christian faith needs this annual return to its biblical roots and foundation for there can be no end to our growth in the understanding of Divine Revelation. The Bible is not a collection of dogmatic "propositions" to be accepted and memorized once for all, but the living voice of God speaking to us again and again, taking us always deeper into the inexhaustible riches of His Wisdom and Love. There is no greater tragedy in our Church than the almost total ignorance by her members of the Holy Scriptures and, what is worse, our virtually total indifference toward them. What for the Fathers and Saints was endless joy, interest, spiritual and intellectual growth, is for so many Orthodox today an antiquated text with no meaning for their lives. It is to be hoped, therefore, that as the spirit and significance of Lent are recovered, this will also mean the recovery of the Scriptures as true spiritual food and communion with God.
Great Lent has its own liturgical book—The Lenten Triodion. lt contains hymns and biblical readings for every day of the lenten season beginning with the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and ending with Vespers of Great and Holy Saturday. The hymns of the Triodion were composed in the main part after the virtual disappearance of the Catechumenate (i.e., adult baptism and the necessity of preparing candidates for it). Their emphasis, therefore, is not on Baptism but on repentance. Unfortunately very few people today know and understand the unique beauty and depth of this lenten hymnography. The ignorance of the Triodion is the principal cause of the slow transformation of the very understanding of Lent, of its purpose and meaning—a transformation which took place little by little in the Christian mentality and reduced Lent to a juridical "obligation" and a set of dietary laws. The real inspiration and challenge of Lent is all but lost today and there is no other way toward its recovery but by an attentive listening to the hymns of the Triodion.
It is significant, for example, how often these hymns warn precisely against a "formal" and, therefore, hypocritical understanding of fasting. As early as Cheese-Fare Wednesday we hear:
In vain do you rejoice in not eating, O soul! For you abstain from food, But from passions you are not purified. If you have no desire for improvement, You will be despised as a lie in the eyes of God, You will be likened to evil demons who never eat! If you persevere in sin, you will perform a useless fast; Therefore, remain in constant striving SO as to stand before the Crucified Savior, or rather, To be crucified with the One who was crucified for your sake!
And again on Wednesday of the Fourth Week, we hear:
Those who thirst for spiritual blessings Perform their good deeds in secret, Not noising them abroad in markets, But ceaselessly pray in the depths of our hearts: For He who sees all that is done in secret, Will reward us for our abstinence. Let us fulfill the fast without sad faces, But ceaselessly pray in the depths of our hearts: Our Father, who art in heaven, Lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
Throughout the whole Lent, the opposition of the Publican's humility to the Pharisee's boasting and self-glorification is stressed in hymns, while hypocrisy is denounced. But what then is the real fast? The Triodion answers: It is first of all an inner purification:
Let us fast, O faithful, from corrupting snares, from harmful passions, So that we may acquire life from the divine cross and return with the good thief to our initial home....
It is also a return to love, a fight against "broken life," against hatred, injustice, envy:
While fasting physically, brothers, Let us also fast spiritually; Let us loose every knot of iniquity, Let us tear up every unrighteous bond, Let us distribute bread to the hungry and welcome to our homes those who have no roof over their heads, So that we may receive great mercy from Christ our God.
Come, O faithful, Let us perform the works of God in the light; Let us walk honestly as in the day. Let us rid ourselves of unjust accusations against our neighbors so that we place no stumbling block in their way. Let us put aside the pleasures of the flesh so that we may increase the grace of our souls. Let us give bread to those in need. Let us draw near in repentance to Christ and say: O, our God! Have mercy on us....
As we listen to that, how far we are from the petty and Pharisaic understanding of Lent which prevails today and which views it exclusively in negative terms, as a kind of "inconvenience" which, if we voluntarily accept it and "suffer through it," will automatically credit us with "merits" and achieve our "good standing" with God. How many people have accepted the idea that Lent is the time when something which may be good in itself is forbidden, as if Good were taking pleasure in torturing us. For the authors of lenten hymns, however, Lent is exactly the opposite; it is a return to the "normal" life, to that "fasting" which Adam and Eve broke, thus introducing suffering and death into the world. Lent is greeted, therefore, as a spiritual spring, as a time of joy and light:
The lenten spring has come, The light of repentance....
Let us receive the announcement of Lent with joy! For if our forefather Adam had kept the fast, We would not have been deprived of paradise...
The time of Lent is a time of gladness! With radiant purity and pure love, Filled with resplendent prayer and all good deeds, Let us sing with joy....
Only those who "rejoice in the Lord," and for whom Christ and His Kingdom are the ultimate desire and joy of their existence, can joyfully accept the fight against evil and sin and partake of the final victory. This is why of all the categories of Saints, only martyrs are invoked and praised in special hymns every day in Lent. For martyrs are precisely those who preferred Christ to everything in this world including life itself, who rejoiced so much in Christ that they could say, as St. Ignatius of Antioch while dying said: "Now I begin to live...." They are the witnesses of the Kingdom of God because only those who have seen it and tasted of it are capable of that ultimate surrender. They are our companions, our inspiration during Lent which is our fight for the victory of the divine, the heavenly, and the eternal in us.
Breathing one hope, beholding one sight, You, suffering martyrs, found death to be the way of life....
Dressed in the armor of faith, Armed with the sign of the Cross, You were soldiers worthy of God! Manfully you opposed the tortures, Crushing the Devil's deceits; Victors you were, worthy of crowns. Pray to Christ that He save our souls....
Throughout the forty days, it is the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection, and the radiant joy of Pascha that constitute the supreme "term of reference" of all lenten hymnography, a constant reminder that however narrow and difficult the way, it ultimately leads to Christ's table in His Kingdom. As I said already, the expectation and foretaste of the Paschal joy permeates the entire Lent, and is the real motivation of lenten effort.
Desiring to commune with the Divine Pascha... Let us pursue victory over the Devil through fasting....
We will partake of the Divine Pascha of Christ!
TRIODION—the unknown and neglected book! If only we knew that it is there we can recover, make ours once more, the spirit not only of Lent alone but of Orthodoxy itself—of its "Paschal" vision of life, death, and eternity.