Fr Robin Gibbons: Reflections on a different Lent

Sometimes it is good that we move out of the confines of our own tradition and discover what other Christians do. This is particularly important in seasons such as Lent because it might help us sharpen up our own attitudes. Because our Middle Eastern communities are now participating in a Lent that makes them real sharers of the sufferings of Christ, I felt that we could learn a little more about their customs and spiritual tradition to help us reflect on Lent.

These are our sisters and brothers, part of the great Church of Christ, suffering for their belief in Jesus, modern confessors of the faith! Sharing with them in prayer and understanding brings us closer together!

I thought I’d begin with the Byzantine communities, both Catholic and Orthodox. For them Lent begins on the eve of Forgiveness Sunday! The Orthodox theologian Fr Alexander Schmemann has this to share with us:

On that unique evening, listening to the joyful Paschal hymns we are called to make a spiritual discovery: to taste of another mode of life and relationship with people, of life whose essence is love… As l advance towards the other, as the other comes to me – we begin to realize that it is Christ Who brings us together by His love for both of us.

And because we make this discovery … we hear the hymns of that Feast, which once a year, "opens to us the doors of Paradise." We know why we shall fast and pray, what we shall seek during the long Lenten pilgrimage. Forgiveness Sunday: the day on which we acquire the power to make our fasting – true fasting; our effort – true effort; our reconciliation with God – true reconciliation.

On that Sunday, before the first week of Great Lent, in a ceremony at the end of Vespers, the Christian comes to the priest, kisses the icon and asks forgiveness of in these words: ‘Forgive me, a sinner’, with the response, “God forgives; Forgive me.’ To which the person replies again ‘God forgives’. In this way both priest and penitent forgive each other, but it does not end there from that point each member of the congregation is expected to ask forgiveness of the other.

Thus Lent begins on ‘Clean Monday’, which starts the 40 continuous days of Great Lent, that ends for these Christians on the eve of Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday! Every Sunday is named after the Gospel of the day, but because Sunday is the day of Resurrection, the day of the Eucharist (thanksgiving), it is not a fast day, only of abstinence from meat.

Unlike the more penitential aspect of the Western Church, Sunday for the Byzantine Christian has the quality of a joyful celebration, what can be called a theme of ‘bright penitence’ and so Alleluias are still sung, However during the week a’ liturgical fast’ is observed and the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated, this underlines the balance between our unworthiness which, even in our sinful state, is tempered by the great joy of the forgiveness and mercy of the Risen Christ.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.