Journey into Lent: Dust

We are excited to embark on our journey into Lent next Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the start of the season of Lent, which begins 40 days prior to Easter. It is a time where people prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance and spiritual practices.

It was common in the Old Testament that people who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes. Job said the following: “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6). The church, from as early as the eight century used ash before mass where the priest dipped his thumb into ash and marked the forehead of person, saying these words: "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return."

Lent is a journey that connects our own dustiness. God named man adamah, which means ‘dust of the ground’. We are indeed earthy people. Human beings are first and foremost connected to the material world. Our human nature and at time our own spirituality tends to pull us away from the dust.

Mans original sin was reveal by 'breaking of the fast". Man ate the forbidding fruit. This is how original sin was revealed.  The journey of Christ, the new Adam, begins by fasting, ends in death and returns to paradise. St. Basil the Great said the following: “Because we did not fast, we were chased out of Paradise; let us fast now, so that some day we return there.

Lent pulls us back to dust.

In the words of Father Sergei Bulgakov's “ we kill the flesh in order to acquire a body…”

Richard Rohr describes the journey as follows: "They are three ways of "de-centralizing the self":  Prayer de-centralizes my mind, almsgiving de-centralizes my heart, and fasting de-centralizes my body. The negative "giving up" notion lost any positive meaning-like seeking God or solidarity with others. Each week of Lent, we will consciously try to let go of INNER PATTERNS that keep us in our wrong head, our small heart, and outside of our bodies."

You will also receive daily reflections and meditations for Lent. For those who want to connect in a deeper way during this journey, please get hold of our 4 gig memory vault (stick) available where we try to explain the philosophical and theological backdrop of the journey. It will serve as a learning guide with spiritual practices and resources. It will be also available in the future as a manual to understand the journey into the desert (desert spirituality) with a special emphasis on silence. We also hope that the memory stick can serve as a digital journal in the future to download all InVia’s material.

For more information of all the events during Lent please read the following letter

(http://www.invia.org.za/profiles/blogs/2813053:BlogPost:34529)

and make sure that you book your dairy!!

Lectio Divina

Mt 6:16-18: "En wanneer julle vas, moenie lang gesigte trek soos die geveinsdes nie; want hulle mismaak hul gesigte, sodat dit deur die mense gesien kan word dat hulle vas. Voorwaar Ek sê vir julle, hulle het hul loon weg.

^{Mt 6: 16-18:} "When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well.

    Isaiah 58

  Your Prayers Won't Get Off the Ground

7.      ^1-3 "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
   face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
   and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
   law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
   and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
   'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
   Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'

 ^3-5"Well, here's why:

8.        "The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
   You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
   You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
   won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
   a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
   and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
   a fast day that I, God, would like?

9.      ^6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
   to break the chains of injustice,
   get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
   free the oppressed,
   cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
   sharing your food with the hungry,
   inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
   putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
   being available to your own families.

Fasting as a way of being.

'The fast', he insists, 'should be kept not by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands and all the members of the body': the eye must abstain from impure sights, the ear from malicious gossip, the hands from acts of injustice. It is useless to fast from food, protests St. Basil, and yet to indulge in cruel criticism and slander: 'You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother'

Fasting as wings:

Kings 19:8-1;  Exod. 34:2;  Acts 10:9-17

St. John Chrysostom thought that prayer and fasting meant the following: “That these are like two wings that carry a person to the heights of God.” (Matt 12:21)

Body-wings

We return to dust and become strangers to our own distorted passions.

  “The first commandment given to our nature in the beginning was the fasting from food and in this the head of our race (Adam) fell.

St. Isaac of Syria

“By abstaining from food, man rises above the level of the
body and above matter, and this is the wisdom behind fasting.”
H. H. Shenouda

Prayer-wings

“Plenus veter non studet libenter.”

  “As long as man’s moth is sealed by fasting his mind will meditate on the repentance of his soul.”

St. Isaac of Syria

Return to paradise

We begin to see the world with the eyes of Adam in Paradise.

Our self-denial is the path that leads to our self-affirmation; it is our means of entry into the cosmic liturgy whereby all things visible and invisible ascribe glory to their Creator.

Bishop Kallistos

Ways to fast from:

1. Past and Future

2. Speed

3. Noise

4. Media

5. Food

6. Passions

7. Friends