Lent is coming up, and we all know what that means: all the goody two shoe Christian pricks will start asking the one question that doesn’t actually matter, which atheists rightfully mock as ridiculous, especially because it’s such coming from such a sincere place, thus making said Christian sincerely ridiculous: what are the rules for fasting, so that way I can do the Christian thing? Eastern Christians will reference the Typikon and its silly intricacies and whether or not fasting from oil means olive oil or just all oil. Normal Catholics will just fast from chocolate. Traddy Catholics and Western Orthodox will put us all to sleep with an explanation on how to abstain and how to fast. It all eventually starts coming down to technicalities, as everyone figures out how to strain the gnat.
We’re going to tell a story I think pretty indicative of the saints, the people who actually stuck the landing, Saints Dorotheus and Dositheus.
Dositheus was a soft rich kid who sat around all day, eating and drinking. He wasn’t a bad kid, nor was he a particularly good one. He was just a soft rich kid. Had he lived today he probably would have had “Fur is murder” bumper stickers and would have drank free trade coffee with a paper straw and looked like a scruffy lumberjack (without being able to change a tire).
Three of those five apply to me. I’m not telling you which.
One day Dositheus happened upon an icon of the Last Judgment, and found he couldn’t look away.
You’d figure someone as seemingly self-centered as Dositheus wouldn’t give such a thing a second glance. But he just kept staring at it, unable to move. A young woman came up to Dositheus and looked at the icon with him. Dositheus asked what the image was about. He’d never seen it and it was so striking! The young woman explained the icon to Dositheus. It’s not known exactly what she told him, but considering that the Scriptures openly say that one goes to Hell for not forgiving sins and taking care of your fellow man I’d imagine that’s at least part of what she talked about. Whatever she said, she made a huge impression. Dositheus, struck by the explanation, asked her how he specifically was to avoid Hell. The woman told him specifically to stop eating meat, something Dositheus was probably quite fond of, and to pray.
She then vanished; it is speculated that it was Mary, the Mother of God, who had appeared to Dositheus. I am inclined to believe such a thing.
Whoever it was Dositheus was convicted by the conversation, and began to fast from meat and to pray. A lot. Eventually his family and friends told him such actions were for a monastic, not a laymen. Dositheus, trusting in the woman who appeared to him, went to Palestine and asked to be a monk.
He looked so soft they thought he was a thief trying to get sanctuary from his pursuers. Nobody who looked like Dositheus could possibly want to be a monk. So the monastery tapped St. Dorotheus to figure out Dositheus’s angle.
St. Dorotheus was the no-nonsense head of the monastery’s infirmary. The abbot figured if anyone could crack Dositheus it was the cantankerous nurse. St. Dorotheus, after cross-examining Dositheus within an inch of his life, concluded the young man was the genuine article, appearances be damned. When St. Dorotheus reported this to the abbot he was informed he was to be the Dositheus’s elder, the man to whom Dositheus reported.
St. Dorotheus protested: he was a nurse in an infirmary ward, with what time did he have to attend with a young man who looked like he would be blown over like a leaf? But one of the monks was an acknowledged prophet, a man with genuine clairvoyance; he told St. Dorotheus that he was necessary for Dositheus's soul.
What happened next will hurt soft modern ears. Back in the day violence was not perceived as the horrific evil that it is today. If you can't get past that I do not recommend reading anything, or going outside, or especially going on a farm.
Now, keep the following in mind: nobody really liked St. Dositheus. He was this upper crust kid who just sorta bumbled around the infirmary, eating the fish heads that his elderly patients wouldn't touch. He barely showed up at church, and when he did he was late. Monasteries, being the pressure cookers that they are, take these small things and make them a big deal. Contrary to the popular Christian perception monks are usually very petty creatures, taking big offense at the smallest things. To be fair, it's hard not to when your around the same idiots day in and day out; I'd be a lot more petty about it if I was in their shoes, for sure! But the fact remains: St. Dositheus stuck out like a sore thumb in an environment where even the slightest differences breed deep resentments. Sometimes this would get the better of St. Dositheus and he would yell at his fellow monks. He usually didn't do anything too over the top, but the young man seemed to have a particularly fragile constitution about such things, because he'd go into a closet and ugly cry. As in, howling cries. For a sharp word to monks who were petty little things.
Sound ridiculous to you?
The monks agree with you!
They'd go to St. Dorotheus, y'know, a busy nurse, and tell him that his spiritual son was sobbing in a closet and nobody could get him to shut up. Imagine standing by the dead of a dying man and someone comes up and goes "So that soft idiot that you're taking care of? Yeah, he's sobbing in a closet and we can all hear him." Would you be nice to him?
Don't lie.
St. Dorotheus went in and mocked St. Dositheus for his absolutely ridiculous constitution, telling him he was a soft fool and that he was a bother, all of which was true. This would make Dositheus howl louder, of course, which made Dorotheus even madder, of course, until finally the elder's anger would turn to pity. "Get up. God forgives you, Dositheus" he would say. And Dositheus would dry his eyes and come out.
This was a regular occurrence, it went on for years. Dear God that sounds annoying. But each time Dorotheus would mock his disciple's soft constitution until he'd run out of steam and then try to comfort him.
In all things Dositheus was obedient to Dorotheus. He remembered what the mysterious woman had told him, and fate had brought him to Dorotheus, so he accepted all this without complaint. Dorotheus, for his part, slowly and patiently accepted most of his charge's habits. He helped wean Dositheus off of most of his dependence on food.... although he never got through about stealing fish-heads off the plates of the elderly. That one never they never got around to. Dositheus had one job, far as Dorotheus was concerned: stop being a crybaby wuss. So when Dositheus took his hand to trying to interpret Scipture Dorotheus beat Dositheus, telling him understanding the Scriptures could wait until after he stopped being a crybaby and actually had something in his soul worth a damn. Dositheus accepted the beating.
I'll repeat it for our soft modern ears: he accepted the beating.
He wasn't scared. He didn't cave in. Nothing like that. He accepted the beating as a continuance from the visitation from the mysterious woman. In fact he accepted everything like that, as a necessary part of what he was told to begin with. It is hard to imagine such a thing, but he did it. And in that was Dositheus's real virtue: he trusted in the truth given to him and trusted that the circumstances he was in flowed from that moment. And that's really the best anyone can do. He just held to it like iron.
So it continued like that, day in and day out. And then one day Dositheus began to spit up blood. His constiution began to fail out. Dositheus then made a decision that I'm not sure I understand, but I'm not here to judge it: he told Dorotheus that now was not the time to take it easy on him. Dositheus wanted Dorotheus to continue with his harsh treatment of him. He had intuited that somehow Dorotheus's rough but loving attitude was what he needed, sickness be damned. Dositheus figured that if he was going to die (and spitting up blood, with medicine at the time, certainly that was a reasonable thing to suppose) he was going to go out holding to what he had been told. Dorotheus, after questioning his disciple, promised he wouldn't take it easy.
It didn't last that long: Dositheus became bed-ridden as his illness became worse. He didn't want to quit, but he was wearing out. Dorotheus didn't leave his side. He asked the abbot for permission to stop fighting, to stop trying to live. The abbot told him to try to hold out for a little while longer. So Dositheus tried. And he failed. He couldn't pray, he couldn't focus, he was in agonizing pain. He begged for permission to stop trying to live; he couldn't fight anymore. The abbot gave his permission to Dositheus. He died a few days later.
And you know what? The monks said good riddance. The weakling thief was dead! Sad that he went out that way, but the place became a lot quieter, and thank goodness! Did I mention monks could be really petty creatures? Did I mention that they're not that different from anyone else? Well, one day a visiting elder from another monastery asked God to show him all the saints, the holy ones, from Dorsitheus's monastery. He saw a particularly young man that wasn't represented in any of the icons. He described the young man to the other monks and they realized he was talking about Dorsitheus... much to everyone's extreme surprise. He was a saint? What in the hell??? But Dorotheus agreed with the vision. Dositheus had a strenght he had hardly even showed to his elder, nevermind to anyone else at the monastery. The abbot, who Dorotheus had kept in the loop, agreed with him. They told the full story of Dositheus's vision, the efforts he went to stay true to the Theotokos, his unflinching acceptance of himself and the monks, and his unwavering resolve to do what was within his power.
Dositheus did not become a saint by doing great things. He did not become a saint by being well-loved. He didn't even become a saint by really being good. He heard his call, trusted it, and followed it to the very best of his ability. He didn't understand much beyond what was right in front of him and after awhile he didn't even try to do that much. He tried to do what he could for those around him within the context of his call, even as he died. Nobody appreciated it. Hell, hardly anybody saw it. But he did it anyways. What he resolved to do was small. How he did it was worthy of the mightiest of warriors. He's been on our calendar ever since.
That is the way of the Church, of the saints, of the Fathers, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
"Yeah, that's nice Nathan. He was visited by the Theotokos. I've not been, so what's this got to do with me?"
Okay, fine.
We'll go back to the monks, 'cause it's documented better and you can find it more easily. Specifically St. Joseph the Hesychast, a modern saint who lived on Mt. Athos. There was a monk who lived on Mt. Athos, the center of Orthodoxy, who was a raging drunk. He yelled at people, never showed up to services, and was such a pain in the ass that the monks actively rejoiced when he died. As in, openly. "Yay, the jerk is dead!" Are you seeing a pattern here? You should.
St. Joseph said he watched the angels take the drunk's soul to heaven.
That demanded an explanation. Turns out the man had been made a drunk by his parents; they had deliberately addicted him to alcohol. The man had no choice in this, he was actively screwed over by his parents. Seeking help he found his way to the Holy Mountain, begging to be made a monk. He had torched his own life and could not recover. The elder he was assigned to asked the man how many drinks he had to have in a day. The answer was in the thirties. "Subtract one drink from that, and when you're okay with that let me know" said the elder. The man was told he didn't have to go to church, nor did he have do anything else. Whatever happened, he had to just keep to the drinking rule.
In the decades that followed the poor man went from thirty-something drinks to two. Two in a day! That's incredible! But even one drink was enough to get him rip-roaring drunk. He never totally conquered it; he died first, his body probably worn out by the years of interior warfare. But every day he resolved to do the rule that he knew could cure him. He didn't have a kind word for anyone because he'd been so screwed up that kindness was impossible. But he wanted to be better and did everything he possibly could to be so. He trusted that God had given him what he needed and that was enough.
So what about you?
We all have something like that. I promise you that we all do. Maybe you know someone that fills your soul with light when you look at them and you've resolved to love that person the best you can. Maybe there's a project that you have to do, against all sanity against all reason against all hope it must be done. Maybe someone really screwed you over and it may take you the rest of your life to get over it; healing is a titanic effort. Trust me, I know how that one goes. You don't have to be visited by the Theotokos or see God 's light with your waking eyes or see the world where all go to dream but can't remember or anything like that. Every human being has something in their soul that vexes them, something that they must contend with, something that drives them forward. It is a deeply personal thing and others may find it to be madness, in fact it's my experience that everyone else finds it madness. But it is yours.
"What's that got to do with the Church? And fasting? And prayer?" Well, it turns out that, whatever it is that's on your heart, it's sent by God, somehow, some way. God sent these things to you, whatever they are. The Church guards the archives of what we have discovered so far when people chase the thing God gave them: the doctrines, the scriptures, all of it is there so you can keep the dialogue with God going as you do the thing He gave you. That dialogue looks different for everyone, from blind acceptance to blinding anger to perpetual mourning to joy to all the other emotions a human is capable of.
It's a toolbox. Not a straitjacket for your brain.
So, whatever it is, whatever it turns out to be, that's the Way. For you. There's a 4,000+ year old toolbox that's been compiled and is kept in a more or less coherent order. If you dig you'll find something.
So if you have to ask if, when the Typikon (a relatively recently compiled book -with multiple versions- in the life of the Church, and a recent edition of that book at that) forbidding oil means all oil or olive oil... well hopefully you can have a good laugh at the question. The question, the one you have to figure out with your priest, parish, and family, is "How can I use the fast to further the calling God gave me?" There is an answer to that.
But it has very little to do with what's in the Typikon.
And probably even less to do with chocolate.
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