What to Do During Lent

Besides Going to Services

Yesterday a friend, who is experiencing her first Orthodox Lent, asked me: “So what do you do when there is no service during Great Lent?” I thought this was a good question. Granted, many days there are services; this week my parish has services Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. But unless you are at a seminary or monastery (and even, perhaps, then), we will have some days during Lent with no services. So what do we do with them? Of course, we should be fasting and giving alms, as our circumstances allow. But how else can we spend our days of Lent?

Even though there is only a week of Lent left, I think that’s worth considering. (It’s never too early to start thinking about next year!) This post is an expansion of the response I gave yesterday:

• Pray: There are regular morning and evening prayers we can say every day, inside or outside of Lent, church services or no services. These can be found in Orthodox prayer books, of which there are many available. Given that my preferred prayer book (Prayer Book in Accordance with the Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church) is sadly out of print,¹ I would suggest Orthodox Christian Prayers published by St Tikhon’s. These books also contain prayers for meals, prayers for various occasions, prayers before and after receiving Communion, and more.

  During Lent, on weekdays,² we can add the Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian.

  
  Incorporating the Psalter into our prayers is always a good practice. If you don’t do this already, then Lent is the perfect time to do so.³ Following the assigned Kathisma⁴ readings for the services of Lent (which can be up to 8 Kathismata per day!) can be overwhelming; it’s certainly not to be recommended to a beginner. But adding just one a day will take you through the entire Psalter twice during Lent. In my parish, we have a group of women scheduled to each read one Kathisma a day during Lent; because we have over 20 participants, the Psalter is collectively read in full every day, which is beautiful.
  
  If you are already consistently praying morning and evening prayers, you might consider adding for Lent one of the services from the daily cycle, such as Compline or one of the hours. If you’re an early riser, there’s always the Midnight Office. (No, it doesn’t have to be said exactly at midnight!) You can find these services in, for example, The Book of Hours published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery. The Anthologion published by St Ignatius Orthodox Press is a beautiful book that contains the texts of the daily office, in their lenten and non-lenten varieties, the entire Psalter, and much more. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to incorporate services from the office into their prayer life.
  
  It’s also possible to do Matins and Vespers at home as a reader’s service, but this is more complicated because of the variable parts of the services. I would not recommend this unless you have a good understanding of how to put the services together. The Anthologion makes this fairly easy, and contains portions of the Lenten Triodion, Octeochos, and a general Menaion to allow you to put services together even if you don’t have access to the full texts. (If you don’t know what those words mean, that’s a sign that you shouldn’t be attempting this yet!) The Tridion and the Triodion Supplement are available as publications from St Tikhon’s. The All-Saints Eastern Orthodox Liturgical Resources website contains all of these texts and more, in English, Slavonic, and Russian.
  
  Alternatively, you might consider adding an Akathist, whether the original one to the Theotokos,⁵ or the modern “Glory to God for All the Things” Akathist. Some prayer books contain a few Akathists. There are also dedicated books of Akathists, which contain Akathists to various saints as well.
  
  Finally—last but certainly not least—it’s good to pray, with or without a prayer rope, the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

• Sit in silence: Prayer is essential, but it is only half of an ongoing conversation with God: the part where we’re doing the talking. It is good to take some time every day to simply sit still in silence. In our modern era of busyness, this can be quite challenging; we feel always compelled to do something. But before we can do we must simply be. Sitting in silence is a reminder of that.

• Read:

  • Scripture: On weekdays of Lent, there are assigned readings for Isaiah (at the 6th hour), Genesis, and Proverbs (both at Vespers). Even if you are not attending or doing the services, it is good to read the assigned readings. They can be found on the OCA website, among other places. During Holy Week, these weekday readings shift to Ezekiel, Exodus, and Job. On the weekends of Lent, as in every day of other parts of the year, there are assigned Epistle and Gospel readings.
    
    If you have a habit of reading more of the Bible beyond the assigned readings (as in a yearly Bible reading plan, for example) that’s great. But trying to keep up with the assigned daily readings is important for understanding how the Church moves through the liturgical year. If you don’t already, Lent is a good time to start. (Just don’t stop after Pascha!)

  • Lives of the Saints: It’s a good practice to try to read the lives of the saints of the day. One popular way of doing this is by reading the Prologue of Ohrid, by St Nikolai of Zhicha. An English translation is published as a two-volume set by Sebastian Press. The lives of the saints can also be found on the OCA website.

  • Spiritual books: Especially during Lent, but also throughout the year, it’s good to read spiritual books. The Lenten book par excellence is St John Climacus’s The Ladder of Divine Ascent. But this is not a book I would recommend for beginners. More accessible modern Lenten classics include Fr Alexander Schmemann’s Great Lent: Journey to Pascha and Fr Thomas Hopko’s The Lenten Spring, both published by St Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s books on prayer, including Beginning to Pray, published by Paulist Press, also make for great Lenten reading.

• Engage with the true and the lovely: St Paul writes: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8) Here St Paul offers us a good framework for how to embrace what we find in the world.
  
  Our reading, for example, doesn’t have to be limited to the explicitly Orthodox or spiritual. If it is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise—then this too is a gift of God. Engaging with the true, the lovely, etc. is always a good thing to do, but especially so during Lent. Much classic literature, art, and music falls into this category. I went to see two musicals during Lent this year, and I would put them in this category as well. In the "Glory to God for All Things” Akathist we sing:
  
  “In the wondrous blending of sounds it is Thy call we hear; in the harmony of many voices, in the sublime beauty of music, in the glory of the works of great composers: Thou leadest us to the threshold of paradise to come, and to the choirs of angels. All true beauty has the power to draw the soul towards Thee, and to make it sing in ecstasy: Alleluia!
  
  The breath of Thine Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets and scientists. The power of Thy supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of Thy laws, who reveal the depths of Thy creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of Thee. How great art Thou in Thy creation! How great art Thou in man!”

• Take a walk: Walking is good for physical and mental health, but I think it’s also good for the soul, especially if we can walk outside in nature. I took a walk at the Desert Botanical Gardens recently, and that was a great space for a Lenten walk. Gentle strolls are better suited to Lent than speed walking. They give us time to reflect.

• Journal: If you don’t already keep a journal, consider keeping one during Lent. Lent is a good time for introspection and reflection. We can’t repent if we can’t take a good look at ourselves. Journaling is one way to do this. I read a book that recommend the practice of Morning Pages: taking some time every morning to write, longhand, three pages about anything at all. I started doing this the first week of Lent, and I think it’s an especially good discipline for this time of the year.

• Eat an Oreo: Okay, this last suggestion is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But sometimes you just need a little pick-me-up in the midst of the Fast. And Oreos happen to be vegan and thus Lenten. St Sophrony of Essex is reported to have said: “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a cup of tea.” Good advice. But among the British tea is often accompanied by “biscuits,” or what Americans would call cookies. So when Lent gets to be a bit too much for you, step back, have a cup of tea—and eat an Oreo.

1. My print copy is, alas, lost. I have a digital Kindle copy, but even that is absent from the Amazon store now.

2. Because the weekends are not liturgically Lenten days (though they are fast days), the Prayer of St Ephraim is not said from Friday night (the liturgical beginning of Saturday) until Sunday night (the liturgical beginning of Monday). My reflection on the Prayer of St Ephraim can be found here.

3. A general caveat to this whole discussion: If you have a prayer rule given to you by a priest, you should always discuss changing it with him.

4. In Orthodox practice, the Psalter is divided into 20 portions. Each is called a Kathisma (pl. Kathismata or the Anglicized Kathismas).

5. This Akathist is called to be served on the fifth Saturday of Lent. In the Greek and Antiochian traditions, a portion of the Akathist is chanted during Small Compline on the preceding Fridays of Lent.