TO FREE THE SOUL...

Friday after the Second Sunday of Lent

For my sins, I served for several years as Dean of California and southern Nevada. During that time, I traveled over the deanery visiting parishes and missions whenever a need arose. When a church was without a priest for some reason, I either had to find one or go myself until a replacement could be found. I enjoyed meeting people and going to small towns or neighborhoods in cities I otherwise would never have seen.

Every parish is a bit different than any other—like each of us, parishes have personalities—gifts and flaws that mark it as unique. The parishioners think theirs is more special than any other: the fellowship is closer, the choir—if not great, is at least better than any they've heard, the sermons—well, every parish has those who complain about the sermons, although most priests, particularly if they’re within five years of their ordination, secretly believe they can out-preach St John Chrysostom.

One of the things I always found funny when I went to a new place was how people approach worship itself. I always tried to find out what the congregation was “used to”—did they use the Book of Common Prayer or the Missal? If they used a Missal, which one did they prefer? Did they expect a sung service or would they respond like frightened deer if I chanted? Did they want hymns? And so on, etc., etc. Regardless of the many options I offered or how different the backgrounds of each place, almost invariably I got the same answer everywhere. “Oh, you know, Father, just the usual sort of thing, like most places. We don’t do anything special here—everybody just likes the Prayer Book as it is.”

Shortly thereafter, with those words still fresh in my ears, I'd find myself presiding over a rite different from any I’d seen before. In all my years as a priest, serving in parishes from Connecticut to California, I have never—ever—seen “the Prayer Book as it is.” The variants have been widespread, confusing and sometimes I’ve literally been staggered (that story I’ll only tell after somebody buys me a bourbon). I’ve ministered to congregations who, until I instructed them otherwise, wanted to say the prayer of consecration with me; people who didn’t want the Eucharist elevated after the Words of Institution but were adamant that the Money be lifted up at its presentation; “fixed hymns”—the same ones repeated Sunday after Sunday as if they a regular part of the Liturgy—both in Anglo-Catholic and “low church” parishes; one place which stopped the Mass for a “flag ceremony” during which the wardens brought the national and State flags into the sanctuary and placed them on either side of the Altar before the Mass could proceed. “The Prayer Book as it is!”

What has been most surprising to me over the years, though, is how much people read into the Prayer Book things that just aren’t there—and then ignore things that are.

Every Sunday at Mass I used to announce to the people the feast days and days of fasting and abstinence. I’m not especially diligent: the Prayer Book orders me to. At St Mary’s it was de rigueur, but in many places I visited, which had long been without a priest, a lot of people expressed surprise about days of fasting and feasting. Some seemed pretty sure I was making it up, or sneaking the Pope in the back door. “I never heard anybody talk about days of fasting ‘cept Catholics.” If I only had a nickel…

Opening the Prayer Book to good ole page “L” and “LI,” I’d show them the “Table of Fasts.” “It’s been in the Prayer Book since there was a Prayer Book,” I’d say. “I know—I’ve been reading this stuff since I was a kid, when I’d pick up the book for something to do while the priest was preaching.” Today, when I see a child leafing through the Prayer Book while I preach, I know they’re learning more from what they’re reading than from what I’m saying!

So the Prayer Book tells us to practice Days of Fasting and Abstinence. What does that mean?

If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to quote myself. This is from my booklet, “An Anglican Guide to Feasting and Fasting”:

“Fasting” refers to the amount of food we eat-we might say, the quantity. On Fast Days we eat less food than usual. We might, for example, have a very light breakfast and lunch with a normal evening meal. Some days, like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, are days of strict Fasting and Abstinence. The usual practice is not to eat at all until after sunset.

“Abstinence” refers to the sort of food we eat-we might say the quality. Usually on days of Abstinence we refrain from eating certain foods- meats, sweets or the like. Since the first centuries Christians have observed Fridays as days of Abstinence, remembering that our Lord was crucified on Friday. We abstain as a way of remembering and, in a small way, participating in His Sacrifice.

Nothing profound there, but something important to our Lent: we don’t fast because food is evil, or abstain because chocolate is bad. We probably will weigh less come Easter morning, but that’s immaterial. Lent forces us to face who we are and what we do. We abuse God’s gifts. All of us do—not just alcoholics or drug addicts (one of the most delightful—and insightful—questions I’ve ever seen on those lists of self-examination questions to help a person prepare for their confession is one I found in an old Russian booklet, where the question is posed “Have you eaten secretly—and alone?”). Fasting confronts us with a fact every one of us wants to forget: sin is inelegant and crude.

Though our struggle is spiritual, its roots are planted in this world. “Depriving our bellies of food,” St Augustine says, “frees our souls weighed down by the world, and enables them to fly to Heaven.”