A Lenten Letter

Ash Wednesday, February 26th, 2020

Dear Friends and Faithful, 

Greetings in the Precious Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Lent has begun! Blessed fast in preparation for the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on this coming Easter! 

At the beginning of this Lent, all around the world, we receive bad news about the Novel Coronavirus’ spread in China, Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. With the exception of Italy, our church now has clergy in all of these countries, and they have constantly asked for prayer. It is frightening and discouraging to many, to know that this virus has become unstoppable and threatens the lives and livelihoods of so many around the world. To many of our poor clergy, the risks and dangers seem to be insurmountable without a medical safety-net, medications or face masks. We pray that God brings this virus to an end, and that God will spare His Church in East and Southeast Asia. Please remember our clergy and faithful, just a few hours north of the East Asian epicenter, and Bp. Athanasius and his family. We believe that “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” (James 5:16) and we ask you all to pray!

Over the last two thousand years, Christ’s Church has developed the tradition of fasting for 40 days, to imitate Christ in the desert and to harden our wills to suffering and persecution, as we expect martyrdom for the sake of Christ and His Coming Kingdom. In the East, the Lenten fast developed as a completely meatless fast for fifty days. In the Western tradition of pastoral and optional fasting, the tradition developed into one mandatory fast a week - on Friday - and a recommendation to eat only one large meal and two small meals on the other days of the week, excluding Sunday. The Anglican maxim for fasting follows the law of moderation: “All may, some should, none must.” In a world of weight-loss and intermittent fasting, we now know that this regimen is extremely healthy, enabling us to renew our immune systems and reverse the negative effects of aging. Spiritually, as well as physically, this is exactly what happens. Fasting helps us to strip off our negative habits and sinful selves, and renew our memory of the waters of Baptism, in which we put on Christ and are renewed forever in the finished Work of Christ. It is hard to abstain from meat on fast days, from bad habits of overeating, abuse of our bodies, and eating for boredom and entertainment, but this aspect of church life helps us learn to deny self and receive God’s gift of grace. 

Remember that it is our practice in the Missionary Diocese of East and Southeast Asia to replace the Nine-Fold Kyrie and the Gloria at the beginning of our liturgies with the ancient lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. This is accompanied with kneeling and putting our faces to the floor, truly humbling ourselves for our sins and imploring God’s mercy upon ourselves, our congregations and upon our nations:

Priest: The Lord be with you!

People: And with thy spirit!

Priest: Let us kneel with our faces to the ground before Almighty God!

Priest: O Lord and Master of our lives, take from us the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. 

People: Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy!

Priest: But give us rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servants. 

People: Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy!

All: Yea, O Lord and King, grant us to see our own transgressions, and not to judge our brothers and sisters, for blessed art Thou, O Lord, world without end. Amen.

I pray that God would help us all to have a profitable and sanctifying fast this Lent. That we would take time to be silent before God, to hear His Voice, and to follow His Commands. That we would repent of our pride, lust, anger and deceit, and rededicate our lives to Christ and His service. The Lord has much that He wishes to accomplish through us, if we will just submit ourselves to Him, obey Him, and humble ourselves before our brothers and sisters. This Lent, we pray that we would be reconciled to our Anglican brothers in the Continuum, to the Western Rite Orthodox with which we have proposed a Joint Synod, to all other Orthodox and Apostolic Christians with whom we share a common faith, and to set ourselves aright with all those who call upon the Name of the Lord. May God grant us true repentance, reconciliation and holiness of  life! Amen.

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, 

Bp. Joseph