One week before Great Lent, our Church prepares us for the ‘arena of the virtues’. The main events in which we’re called upon to make a particular effort are fasting and prayer. But these are events which aren’t aimed at independent prizes, particularly ones which would threaten to fill us with self-satisfaction and hubris. The aim of all the ascetic struggles is the chief crown: love, a garland of blossoms which grow only in the ground of humility. Humility and love, then, are an inseparable pairing- one never exists without the other- and it’s to these that we should look as we perform our ascetic efforts in Lent, which will soon be upon us.

Love over all

 

The Epistle reading helps us to understand the deep meaning of fasting, in particular. For the Church, ‘fasting’ means neither diet nor some vague notion of the exercise of self-control. Saint Paul says that whether you eat or don’t eat is a matter of indifference in moral or religious terms. It acquires a spiritual dimension when it’s linked to the person of Christ.

 

For believers, ‘fasting’ means ‘I don’t eat, because of my love for Christ and out of obedience to the Church’. Of course, there can be no love for Christ if we don’t love other people, who weren’t only made ‘in the image of God’ but for whose salvation ‘Christ died’. This is why, if you put the smallest stumbling-block in the way of the salvation of your neighbor, ‘you sin against Christ’. Because he built his work on his sacrifice on the cross, and scandal-mongers destroy it through their selfishness.

Praying with Humility: Our "Cell Phone" to the Heavenly Father (by Dcn. Michael Schlaack)

Throughout the Gospels Jesus taught in parables.  The word we translate as parable in English is the Greek word parabolhn, which literally means in English, “Beside-Cast,” and is meant to convey the act of laying something next to another object for the purpose of comparison.  And this is exactly what Jesus does as He describes certain aspects of the Kingdom of God.  In the case of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is dealing with prayer, and more specifically, humble prayer.

A good place for us to start when considering humble prayer and its impact on our lives is to simply ask ourselves, “How’s my prayer life?”  There is a beautiful quote from the 19th century Russian monk and bishop, St. Theophan the Recluse, which helps us to redirect our focus towards our prayer life;

Let me recall a wise custom of the ancient Holy Fathers: when greeting each other, they did not ask about health or anything else, but rather about prayer, saying “How is your prayer?” The activity of prayer was considered by them to a be a sign of the spiritual life, and they called it the breath of the spirit. If the body has breath, it lives; if breathing stops, life comes to an end. So it is with the spirit. If there is prayer, the soul lives; without prayer, there is no spiritual life.”

Take a couple of minutes to really consider what St. Theophan is saying here.  To the ancient Holy Fathers, prayer was as necessary as breathing.  If your ability to breathe is in any way hindered, you suffer a slow death.  Breathing is something we must do for our entire lives; from the very moment of our birth to quite literally our last dying breath.  Breathing is a sign of life and a basic requirement for our existence.

 Now consider this in light of our spiritual rather than our physical life.  When our prayers become hindered or non-existent, then our spiritual life begins to suffer, and all aspects of our faith slowly dies.  And just as breathing is a basic function that demonstrates the existence of life, so too does prayer indicate the existence of our spiritual life.  Most of us will agree that no one can be considered a faithful Christian if he or she does not pray.  We cannot claim to be in communion with God if we do not spend time in dialogue with Him.