The Year of Living Rhythmically #2
April 1, 2009
A friend of mine recently turned 40. When I congratulated him on passing this milestone he smiled and replied, “Thank you. It’s just another year for me to learn how to repent.” Part of what prompted such an unusual response from my friend was the fact that he recently joined the Eastern Orthodox church. Grateful for being a part of God’s family and the privilege of entering the Kingdom, my friend found repentance to be the most appropriate means of expressing thanks to God. While all of Christianity stresses repentance it is interesting to pay attention to the attitude toward repentance found in the traditions of our Orthodox brothers and sisters.
Alexander Schmemman, Orthodox theologian and priest, describes the season of Lent as a “school of repentance.” Such a description reminds us that repentance is in fact learned rather than something natural to us. It is not inherent to our personalities. Precisely because repentance is something to be learned we should develop, or perhaps discover, ways through which it becomes a part of the rhythm of our lives. The observance of Lent, which is at the center of the church year, is one way to do this.
For those of us outside of churches with strong liturgical traditions, these following words help us make sense of practices like Lent, which seem so foreign. Schmemman continues:
“…the liturgical traditions of the church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent, and return to it.” (from Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pg. 13)
Rather than a dry and disconnected religious activity, Lent and the other seasons of the church year, serve the purpose of reminding us of the new life, the renewed experience of God’s presence, which we have received through faith in Christ. None of us are immune to the toll that time and inattention can have on our faith. Regular opportunities for renewal built into our very calendars and fortified by the seasons of the year reignite our passion for following Christ, experiencing God’s love and enjoying the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
If you have not engaged the Lenten season this year let me urge you to do so. It’s not too late to participate in this season of repentance, reflection and preparation for the great and celebration of Easter. All proper preparations for Easter morning include repentance.
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Thanks for the encouragement, Paul. I have appreciated your thoughtful ways of writing about these issues.
As one who belongs to a tribe that experiences a liturgical year made of up of only two sacred seasons (Christmas and Easter), I feel that there are long gaps of time without special attention paid to the great story of how God acted in the history of our world.