The Seasonal Fast as Return to Nature

“It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty and everlasting God, Who by the fasting of the body dost curb our vices, elevate our minds, and bestow virtue and reward” –From the Preface for Lent

               Rejoice, what is corruptible is overcome. By the subduing of the flesh we conquer Nature and are clothed with Divinity. There is a natural cleansing of the mind that comes from taking command of our passions, and this is accomplished by learning to deny even legitimate desires, even our body’s cry for basic needs. So much is attested by the wise the world over, but in uniting our own willing sufferings in union with the outpouring of the Cross, we expect the promise of a crown as splendid in glory as it is dark with blood.

               But here we encounter a problem. We no longer have a nature. Not absolutely speaking– nothing can exist without an essence– but by a strange alienation, a distancing of ourselves from ourselves.

               The world is built on music, on cycles, on harmony. Nothing grows, nothing truly moves forward in this life, that does not repeat itself. There is no true word that does not rhyme, and no true event that does not repeat the past. God made the world in seven days, and these seven days repeat each week. Every Saturday is that first Saturday, the sabbath, the rest. Every Sunday is that first Sunday, a new creation, a new life. God divided the Earth from the Heavens, the Night from the Day. He set in motion the wheel of the seasons. He set a measure to man’s life and planted him in this earth.

               No false primitivism is necessary to see that every change, every decision, involves something that is lost as well as something gained. I do not count it a loss that I do not need to worry about starvation, about freezing to death, that access to great books is cheap, or that I can read them at night by electric light. I do not refuse gratitude for these goods we now take for granted, but I say we dwell now in an image of an image, a false eternity beneath the churning beauty of time.

               The Good is the real, and all partial goods climb toward it. The Good is the eternal. Lacking no perfection, it has no possibility of change. This climbing, then, is an image of the Good, reflected in broken vessels. Time is an image of eternity. The cyclical music of Earth and Heaven is an image of Eternity.

               Now we are without those changes. We have the same entertainments by night as by day; we have the same pleasures in snow as in sun; we have the same foods in winter as in summer; we have no lean time nor harvest. Our earthly life reflects the mind of God, and we build a world that reflects this life with various displeasures removed. An image of an image. Lacking these cycles, it gains a certain constancy– not a true changelessness, nor the dance of time.

               Holidays to some degree return us to time. A day for barbecue, a day for turkey. They are momentary. They pass quickly, asking less and less of us each year.

               The seasonal fast gives us our nature back because it is a long, slow song like the song of creation itself. If for Lent we say “I’ll just give up the candy bar,” or “I’ll try, in a general way, to be more kind,” we do not lose only the chance for supernatural merit, but a chance to have our nature returned to us.

               Arise early each morning to say your prayers. Each night examine your conscience and make an act of contrition. You have fulfilled the call to Lenten prayer. What’s more, night and day are returned to you. No longer are they the simple motion of the clock, nor are they defined by employment alone. The sun rises to show you joy; the sky says, “Now is the time of praise. Let me show you the glory of humble adoration painting the heavens.” The night is dark because your soul is not without darkness. The night is silent to remind you of the interior peace that comes from contrition. The words of creation are now spoken both ways. You are in conversation with God and with all that He has made.

               Agree to a fast. A true fast. Eat but one meal a day. Abstain from the flesh of animals, from milk, and from eggs. Lent is no longer an afterthought. No more do you think “oh, I must give something up” at the last minute. It is a struggle you will think of weeks ahead of time. It does not pass like the irreverent holidays. It is a season. It is a daily reminder.

               You have no threat from wild animals. You have no threat from a bad harvest. But the seasons are returned to you. If they still mean less in terms of our physical survival, they now mean more by the sanctifications the Church has placed on them.

               It is cold. The trees are bare. The days are dark and short. The winter drags on. Even if we stay inside, even if we work in an office, now we see the meaning. The world is dark and barren because we must fast. The earth struggles to sustain life because we, too, must struggle. We wait for the spring not only because it will be warm or because flowers are beautiful, but because our physical life is bound to the seasons. There are lean times when we must accept that food is scarce. There are times of plenty when we must feast. And we will know what is a feast, that it is not merely a party. The earth will speak the word ‘Resurrection’, and we will feel it in our souls because we have felt it in our bodies.

               By a serious turn to the spiritual life, our nature is returned to us. The song of creation is sung more fully in us, and by returning our bodies to the earth we receive the hope of laying aside all earthly cares.