The Anticipated Light

Today, when I started my car, I accidentally mistook a selection from Mozart's Requiem on the radio for Christos Voskresi. It was strange, as I am very familiar with this piece of music, and never before had my mind confused the Latin with anything else. But there it was. Christos Voskresi sounding out through the car under the guise of Mozart.

My son Sasha doesn’t quite understand the cycle of the Church yet, so he keeps arguing with me that it is not Lent, but Pascha, and about twenty times a day I am instructed to sing Christ is Risen. It seems odd, my voice carrying throughout the house in high festal soprano on a Friday during Great Lent, but then I realize it does make sense, for the whole point of Lent is to ready ourselves to see the Risen Christ.

So often I find myself falling into the superficial aspects of the Fast, like mourning chicken korma and beef tenderloin, or trying to reason whether it is or is not appropriate to go to the Symphony. The exercise in will-power, to gain control over the desire of the flesh, is good, but I also need to remember why I am doing it. I am putting away all that is unnecessary, so that I can concentrate more fully on Christ, and with this comes great joy. On the other side of doubt, struggle and darkness there is always joy.

I wish I could have remembered this yesterday as I sat on the floor of my office munching away at a bag of Doritos, and then sipping, not so elegantly, the ever-notorious caffeinated, carbonated beverage, feeling very sorry for myself. Most of the time I am fully content. I play with my children, attend to their needs, I prepare the music for services, I write, I clean, I pray. But yesterday on the floor I wanted nothing. Sasha came up to me and asked me to read him a book and I could not even find the energy to stand up. The darkness was so heavy I could not cry, but continued to stare out into the emptiness of my own mind. After a few hours my husband came home. I sat glumly at the table, picking at my lentils and he talked about his day. Both children fell asleep just after six, and he suggested we sit in my office and read together. And there was joy. My listlessness did not completely dissipate, but there was joy. I could see beyond my own shadow on the floor.

We pray for the Lord to take away the spirit of despair, something that I pray all the more fervently for during the prayer of St. Ephraim. I know now despair and darkness will always pursue me, but I also know the despair is part of the joy I feel later, the darkness part of the light.

I understand Lent this year in a way I have not in the past. It is not about what we do and do not give up. It is not about breaking or following the rules. It is about being in a state of anticipation always. We stand, like the wise virgins, waiting for the bridegroom to appear. We eat less, we stop watching television, we stop listening to the radio, so that we can be vigilant, so that nothing distracts us from our vigil outside of the tomb of Christ. We need not wear mournful faces, because we know He is coming. We know He will rise again.