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Happy Monday, and a blessed Cheesefare Week to you all!
Yes indeed, it is that wonderful time of year again–or at least, it almost is. Great Lent is just around the corner: a time to intensify our relationship with Christ and the saints; go an extra mile or two to see what awaits us down the road; prepare for the salvation of mankind in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Great Lent is, inherently, a time of preparation. It is the period demarcated by the church to get us ready for such an earth-shattering event as the Crucifixion and Resurrection. But, despite the fact that Great Lent is supposed to be a time to prepare, we still must ensure we are ready for its own unique trials. We must prepare for our period of preparation, if you will.
Consider studying for a final exam. Do you just start picking up the textbook and reading? No, you often plan more deliberately than that. You make sure you know what’s on the final exam, so that you can study the correct source material. You aggregate multiple sources on the material in question, to get all of the perspectives. You don’t just start studying in the crowded dining hall, surrounded by your friends–you go off, into the library, find somewhere you can be undisturbed. You fill up your water bottle, bring a snack, put on some tunes, and then you are ready. You are ready to prepare.
As such, we must take this week–Cheesefare Week–to get ready for everything Great Lent will bring to us. Here are the steps that I’m going to try to take:
1) Eat a ton of dairy
While this one isn’t necessarily geared toward spiritual depth or anything, it’s the last week we can eat cheese and milk for 40 some days. If you intend on keeping the full fast–meat, dairy, wine, oil, fish, everything–then you should take these last days to savor those foods. If not solely because you’ll miss them, because fasting from mac and cheese will be way easier if you made yourself, very deliberately, a delicious farewell mac and cheese this week.
2) Reinvigorate your prayer life
The hope and prayer is that your prayer life is healthy, active, and strong–I know for me, this is not the case. As such, I think we will struggle to go through these added efforts of Lent–increased fasting, more services, et cetera–if we don’t re-establish a relationship and dialogue with God, and that relationship and dialogue comes through prayer. We will need His help to get through Lent in the best possible way–so begin praying for God’s strength and mercy now, so that you can be better prepared when temptation comes knocking later.
3) Schedule extra services–today
Lent adds a whole slew of services to the schedule, from the weekly Presanctified Liturgy to the Canon of St. Andrew next week. It can be nice and easy in our heads to say “Oh, when I’m free, I’ll go” but we are college students–we are never really “free.” There’s always something we could be doing. If we don’t very intentionally, firmly, pointedly carve out the space on Wednesday evening to head to Presanctified–or just make sure we attend every Saturday Vespers–we will likely not increase our church attendance. Make the decision now, so that you’re prepared when the time comes.
4) Consider the depth of your fast
The church prescribes a fast–but all fasts are individual, personal. The encouragement is to follow the dietary fast as strictly as possible, but if you can’t avoid oils in the dining hall, that’s okay. Fast as to your capacity. However, we should also consider fasts beyond the dietary restrictions: Great Lent calls for a decrease of auxiliary noise in our lives, an increase in self-reflection and personal growth. Consider what a fast–even if it isn’t a completely cold-turkey cut-off, but just a gearing down–from Netflix, music, movies, parties, and alcohol could do for your spiritual life.
I hope that your Lent is fruitful, and that you return to the OCF blog often for more readings/OCF opportunities to help you through your effort of Great Lent.
