Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday. Today, in the liturgies at my church, the clergy will impose ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross, and we will hear the familiar words: ‘For dust you are, and to dust you shall return’. This was a part of the curse God spoke upon Adam, and as the first anthropos, the conditions of this curse remain in the world for all of us.

We will all die! This is a central message of the Lenten season, and we embrace that at the outset. We are brought through this symbolic action to grips with our own frailness and mortality.

But this isn’t a depressing or negative message. In fact, if we find this ash-imposition ritual depressing, we may have missed the meaning of it. We put on ashes as a point of entrance into a season of mindfulness and transformation. Lent is a 40 day ‘liminal space’: a fancy phrase sociologists use to describe the space in between two kinds of experience. For us, Lent is nothing less than a liminal space between the tragedy of our nominal Christianity (Schmemann) and our life in Christ, our victory (through him) over death itself, which we celebrate at Easter!

Lent is an opportunity for all of us to throw ourselves vigorously into the activity of repentance! As Alexander Schmemann put it, we need very much to take Lent seriously, especially since we live in a culture that is not Christian, and which is constantly seducing us away from our Christian identity. Lent is a time for us to be counter-cultural!

The Church traditionally teaches us to apply ourselves to three basic categories: prayer (prayer rules, reading psalms, corporate services), fasting (limiting food/drink according to a tradition), and charity (opening our hearts to our neighbors). These are essentially positive actions, and much broader in their scope than mere deletions.

How are we going to jump into these activities? Have you got a plan, or are you (like me) still settling what to do? Better late than later, or never! Lent is a gift for all of us, a great opportunity. Let's encourage each other to grasp it with both hands!

Yours in Christs,
Justin

‘Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and you do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.’ St. Isaac the Syrian