The Orthodox Christian Faith - Lesson 7
Catechism
DISCLAIMER
The catechism lessons series is prepared by me (Qai) of Orthodox Shahada. I am not ordained clergy. However, I have the explicit blessing of my spiritual father (who has been a priest in the ROCOR jurisdiction for 40+ years) to conduct catechism classes. The lessons are delivered in person at the parish level and are now being made available online in the hope that they will benefit others.
Orthodox Christians are expected to fast for about 50% of the year, enumerated as weekly (Wednesday and Friday), seasonal (Great Lent, Nativity, Dormition, Apostles’), and solitary (e.g., Exaltation of the Cross) fasts.
Many people, Orthodox Christians included, erroneously equate the word “fast” with merely the abstention of food and/or drink. When Muhammadans (i.e., followers of the false prophet Muhammad) “fast” throughout the so-called month of “Ramadan”, they abstain from food and drink during the day, but in the evening (when the “fast” is no longer in effect) proceed to gorge at all-u-can-eat buffets in elaborate displays of gluttony and engage whatever carnal pleasures they desire.
In contrast, Orthodox Christian fasting consists of a combination of complete abstention from all food and drink as well as abstention from specific foods (meat, dairy, and eggs). Moreover, our notion of “fasting” extends to limiting carnal indulgence in general. This means altogether eliminating, or severely limiting, our indulgences in carnal activities such as sexual intercourse, watching movies, listening to music, and engaging in secular-based hobbies.
When we fast, our minds are focused on repentance so that we may come closer to God. In order to nurture a repentant spirit, we strive to be ever more diligent in living the Mystical, i.e., Christian, life.
The glue that holds repentance and Mystical life together is prayer. Prayer is essential when fasting. Not only does prayer keep our hearts focused on repentance, but prayer is itself a form of fasting: when you pray, you are not indulging your carnal thoughts and desires. In other words, the more you pray, the more you fast:
“pray without ceasing”
1 Thessalonians 5:17
It is not a coincidence that the greatest fast of the liturgical year, Great Lent (leading up to Pascha, i.e., “Easter”), is also the time when the Church significantly increases its prayers. For example, and this is just one example among many, throughout the year the Psalter is liturgically prayed through its entirety on a weekly basis. However, during Great Lent it is prayed in its entirety twice weekly.
While we as Orthodox Christians strive to maintain strict abstention from certain foods and carnal indulgences when fasting, we must also be mindful to increase our prayers. If prayer is not filling the void left by cessation of carnal indulgences, then all one is doing is tormenting the body by starvation with no benefit to the soul.
The Sunday leading directly into Great Lent is known as “Forgiveness Sunday”. On this day, Orthodox Christians come together congregationally to explicitly express acts of forgiveness towards one another.
We bow down to each other in humility, we embrace each other as brethren, and we kiss each other with love - all while asking each other for forgiveness. We cannot enter Great Lent holding grudges, bearing ill will, or being unrepentant of our transgressions, known and unknown, towards each other.
One thing, however, that might appear odd to some people is to ask forgiveness from those they have never seen before, as well as to forgive them, complete strangers. A person suddenly shows up at the parish that you have never seen before in your life, yet you ask them for forgiveness and at the same time forgive them. How strange! Or so it may seem...
When we as Orthodox Christians seek forgiveness from someone we meet for the first time, and likewise grant them forgiveness, this is actually a statement that from this moment moving forward, the new acquainting has forgiveness as its foundation. It is a statement that before the person should ever even transgress against you and you against them, that you and they have already unconditionally forgiven each other beforehand.
This is how an Orthodox Christian expresses Divine Love for his fellow human being, whoever they may be. Without this phronema, one cannot enter Great Lent, and their so-called “fasting” is futile.
Engagement in spiritual life means to struggle – against the demons and one’s own pride. As Orthodox Christians we all tread the same path to salvation, fight the same passions, hold to the same faith, and partake of the same Holy Eucharist that is really and truly the Body and Blood of the Lord our God Jesus Christ.
I once attended a talk by Archimandrite Demetrios Carellas wherein he made a profound remark: there are not multiple ways of life, one for laity and another for monastics. Rather, there is only one way of life: Christ. The only thing that differentiates the layman from the monastic is that the monastic pursues the Christian way of life more intensely.
Great Lent – and especially Holy Week – gives us laity the motivation to join our monastic brothers and sisters in intensified devotion to the Christian way life: Communion, prayer, fasting, charity – all under the purview of unconditional forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
Looking beyond Great Lent and Holy Week, we as Orthodox Christians must fight the demonic onslaught of globalized homogeneity, transhumanism, and the utmost perversion of human nature with the societal embrace of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We as laity must intensify our Christian praxis (way of life) so much so that, even though we may live in the world we are not of it, and become indistinguishable from our monastic brothers and sisters in our intensity and dedication to Christ.
Nevertheless, we must always remain mindful that with increased praxis comes an increase in trials and tribulations and demonic attacks.
When you convert to the Orthodox Christian faith and when you practice Orthodoxy, do not think that you reached the finish line. It is precisely when you live the Orthodox Christian life that the war against Satan intensifies.
Once you are Orthodox, the demons will do everything they can to make you leave the faith. They will fill you with doubt. They will distract you in prayer. They will make you sin. They will do all that they can to make you despair, which is to lose faith in Christ.
But when the demons see that your faith is unshakeable, that you are diligent in observing your prayer rule, that you struggle against the passions and frequently go to confession and partake of the Holy Eucharist, that day after day your trust in Christ is strengthened, then they will seek to make you prideful and arrogant. And it is precisely in this way that one comes to be in “prelest”, or spiritual delusion / spiritual sickness: one rejoices in thinking that they are winning the spiritual struggle, but in fact do not realize that they are in free fall on the path to damnation.
The Fathers teach us to recognize that the struggle never ends. This recognition is the first step to attaining humility, the one weapon that makes the demons tremble in fear.
Be ever vigilant in your struggle and consider what St Paisios remarked: “The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God.”
At the same time, be mindful that Christian suffering is not to simply endure, but to endure with humility, patience, and joy. Moreover, Orthodox Christian praxis must lead to love of everyone and unconditional forgiveness, otherwise praxis is spiritually dangerous as it will foster pride: are you fasting to boast or to be a vessel of Divine Love?
Without unconditional forgiveness a person separates oneself from fellow man as sin separates one from God. This separation is akin to adultery and is sinful. God commands us to love one another. To disobey God is to sin. And every sin is a type of adultery.
Though we most readily associate adultery with sexual intercourse, in fact, every sin is a type of adultery.
The fundamental idea behind adultery is being controlled/governed by one’s passions which leads to the betrayal of a bond, and, ultimately, separation from God. More specifically, one’s will is not aligned with God’s will:
“Our Father in heaven, [...] Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9-10
Not being aligned with God's will means that one is serving a different “master”, i.e., mammon:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:24
To commit adultery in one's heart is not to just lust after a woman in thought:
“But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:28
That type of lust is just the most primitive expression of adultery. Rather, one must contextualize adultery as it relates to our whole purpose of union unto God:
“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
John 6:56
“...by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
2 Peter 1:4
When our thoughts betray the divine purpose of our having been created and we instead allow our passions to control even our thoughts, then we sever our union with God and commit adultery, just as how a husband severs his union from his wife by being with another woman.
And just as how a man unites with his wife and they become one flesh:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Genesis 2:24
so too man must unite with Christ:
“But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”
Matthew 8:22
All sins betray our union with Christ, and so when a Christian sins they commit adultery against Christ. As we say in the pre-Communion prayers (of St John Chrysostom):
“And even as Thou didst not reject the woman, who was a harlot and a sinner like me [...] And as Thou didst not abhor her defiled and polluted mouth which kissed Thee, neither do Thou abhor my mouth, yet more defiled and polluted than hers [...].”
In other words, a sinner is reckoned an adulterer with respect to Christ.
But Christ does not condemn us though we deserve condemnation. The story of the adulterous woman in the Gospel according to John is not just about the woman; it is also about us and our relationship with Christ. He loves us so much that though we commit adultery against Him, He will not cast stones at us in condemnation:
“Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?’ This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’ Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”
John 8:2-12
So long as we are repentant, we may be reconciled unto Christ:
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”
Luke 5:31-32
But we cannot be repentant, meaning to be reconciled unto Christ, without forgiveness and love:
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:14-15
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:43-45
As Orthodox Christians we fast in order to eliminate pride so that we may reconcile ourselves to fellow man so that we may reconcile ourselves unto Christ.