After the Great Canon service. 5th Wednesday of Great Lent 2009.

 

A happy heart.

Fasting creates simple pleasures.

Lentil Curry, & cooking oil and onions.

“Yummy” Black Cherry soda.

The Theme of the Great Canon.

St Mary of Egypt.

Irony.

 

It made my heart “enlarged”[1]  to see so many of you at the Great Canon service Wednesday night, and also surprising to me, so many at the meal we had in between Presantified and Matins. I also received by email from some that you were not able to come for various reasons, but the very fact that you wanted to come made it feel to me as if you were standing with us in prayer all the time.

 

It was also a pleasure to provide the main course for our meal, and to cook it with oil which was allowed Wednesday because of the rigor of the services. It is also allowed Thursday & Friday. It was even an added benefit to see that Raissa appreciated it. I assure you, I can do much better. I was disappointed in the lentils. I think the lentils were a little old and dried out. Although I cooked them for a long time, they did not get soft. When they soften, they take up the flavor of the curry so much better. When I get a chance, I will post the recipe.

 

It is such a simple but very satisfying pleasure to have a little oil in the middle of the week. It can be as edifying to not fast (or fast less) as to fast, but only if we fast in the first place! Self-indulgence is a great enemy to the soul. We are not against pleasure, or legalistic about fasting, as some non-Orthodox and even Orthodox slander our rules, but the temperate man actually has MORE pleasure than the indulgent one! When I was a kid, we did not routinely have soda at home, but occasionally, my mother would buy a six-pack of “Yummy” store brand Black Cherry soda from the local Jewell. What a great pleasure that was, as I LOVED Black Cherry soda. I am sure it would not have been so pleasurable if she bought me a “big gulp” of it every day. The novelty would wear off, and there would have been toxic side effects – I would not have learned about simple pleasures, and the high fructose corn syrup might have made me get fat, and predisposed me to diabetes. We have an epidemic of these afflictions in the Western world, because of the cheap, easy availability of toxic, tasty foods, such as high fructose corn syrup, and our addiction to them.

 

I made the curry with oil, but I actually rarely do. It is just as easy to sauté the onions in plain water or vegetable broth. This is actually healthier, and I do not really taste any difference. If the oil is allowed to get too hot (and this is really EASY to do), it breaks down, and forms many carcinogenic compounds, plus some of the really beneficial micro-nutrients in the oil get broken down by the heat and we lose their benefits. Anytime oil is heated a lot (such as frying) it forms toxic compounds (some oils are especially susceptible to this, such as most margarine). Over the long term, these compounds cause disease, especially cardiovascular disease. For this reason, I never fry, and only occasionally use only oil to sauté. Sometimes I use oil AND water, and keep adding water, so that the temperature of the oil does not exceed the boiling point of water (the chemistry course you may not  remember teaches us that when water reaches boiling, the temperature does not increase past the boiling point, unless the steam is trapped and increases the pressure of the “system”. Since my pan has a relatively loose fitting lid, the steam can at least partially escape, and therefore the gas pressure inside the pan does not increase much, and the temperature stays constant. See Boyles Law and the properties of water. Class dismissed!)

 

By the way, when you cut onions or garlic, wait 20 minutes before cooking them. This allows time for the enzymes to cause very beneficial compounds to form. In onions especially, these healthy usually sulphur containing compounds make you cry. As soon as the onions or garlic are heated, the enzymes denature, and the manufacture of the healthy compounds ceases, although, as long as the heat is not way too high or prolonged, the ones produced will still retain their healthy properties.

 

I think the main theme of the Great Canon is that we are broken because of sin. Our understanding of sin is so different from the West that I wish we did not use the same word. For the Orthodox, sin arises out of our brokenness and confusion. The greatest penalty of sin is the confusion and pain it causes us. This pain DOES NOT go away when we are forgiven! Our brokenness and pain will go away only when we stop being sinners – when we are freed of sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ became man in order to conquer sin, not just forgive it. We long for being free of sin – and if you listen closely, this theme is present in every line of the Great Canon.

 

I don’t like to be broken. I want to be whole. This is the entire reason that I am a Christian; there is no other way to become whole. I became a priest because seeing pain, the vast majority of which is self-inflicted, in others, makes me mad. My prayer for my flock is that they each feel acutely their brokenness and cling to Christ in every way to become healed. If you do not feel broken, you will not ask to be fixed; you will not be fixed!

 

I can think of no other prayers in our vast lexicon which express the feeling of brokenness better than the Great Canon.

 

When combined with the Life of St Mary of Egypt, which we read last night, we see the “before” and “after” picture. It can be our picture too.

 

St Mary was terribly broken and full of sin in her early life. Like most sinful people, such as the ones we see in the mirror, she was not acutely aware of her sins. I think we can surmise from her own description of her early sinfulness that she was actually completely unaware of her brokenness; however, by God’s grace, through the intercession of the Mother of God, beyond all expectation, she came to her senses and repented.

 

I always take great comfort in her words to St Zosimas:

 

“Know, holy father, that I am only a sinful woman, though I am guarded by Holy baptism. And I am no spirit but earth and ashes, and flesh alone."

 

St Mary was part of the “hatch em, match em and dispatch em” crowd (seen in church on the day of their baptism, their marriage, and for their funeral). I have had some of these types of baptisms. I call them “bungee baptisms”, after the Dilbert cartoon where the “bungee boss” comes into the office as the new boss (attached to a bungee cord), only to be reassigned so quickly that is was as if he was never there. I suppose that is not the most pious way to refer to the problem of people that baptize their children and then never come to church, but sometimes I gotta laugh to keep from crying.

 

I have all these people in my dyptichs[2], although I never see them. I often think of St Mary’s words about baptism when I commemorate them . May the grace of baptism guard these dear children even though their parents cannot or will not show them a good example in the Christian life, and attend services and partake of the mysteries regularly.

 

I think our presence in all the services, and especially such ultra compunctionate ones such as the Great Canon, is always touched by irony.

 

Speaking for myself (but also knowing human nature and realizing that my weaknesses are by no means unique):

 

I stood in prayer reading a story about a woman who prayed with such fervor and detachment from worldly things that she stood suspended a “forearm’s length” in the air[3], while not only my feet but also my mind remained firmly rooted to the ground as I flitted from one useless, trivial thought to another.

 

I read verses in the canon that clearly elucidated St Andrew felt keenly his brokenness, while my inattention, shuffling feet and “counting of verses” showed clearly how broken I am.

 

I read poetic words of wisdom, and with some of them I simultaneously thought: “I have no idea what this really means, and I should!”

 

I read about St Mary laying on the ground for a full day and a night, watering the ground with her tears, trying to stave off lustful thoughts, and illicit songs and images[4], and the Internet brings these things to me as I sit on my couch, from the ads in my email or Facebook page. 

 

Truly, when we pray, in our thoughts and actions the words of the Psalmist are fulfilled:

 

“I believed wherefore I spake; I was humbled exceedingly. As for me, I said in mine ecstasy: Every man is a liar.” (Psalm 115:1[5])

 

So what are we to do, as we pray weakly, live haphazardly, and lie by calling ourselves Christians while not living in every way as one? There is only one solution, and we know it will work, because God has promised it will. Immediately after the Psalmist proclaims radically his sinfulness, he confidently replies to himself:

 

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He hath rendered unto me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord.” (Psalm 115:2)