c. 1995 Religion News Service

(Editors’note: Western churches observed Easter on April 12; Orthodox churches observe Easter April 19. This column is intended for use April 14 or thereafter. Frederica Mathewes Green lives and writes in Baltimore, Md.)

UNDATED _ Sure, it’s all very well for you. You’ve already had Easter.

You’re taking that leisurely amble down from a pleasant crest of satiety, where the discovery of a leftover, headless chocolate bunny brings a sweet, private joy.

You’re peeling green cellophane grass off the last sticky jellybeans that sifted to the bottom of the basket. Easter is a lingering, pleasant glow.

But it’s still Lent for me.

We Eastern Orthodox, on our different calendar, are a week behind the West this year.

On Sunday the papers were full of Easter dinners, Easter services, little girls in frilly dresses. We pushed our shopping carts through pastel stuffed grocery stores,looking a little glum.

Everybody in America was having a party and we couldn’t go. The contrast was particularly vivid because the Orthodox practice such a thorough-going Lent. It’s still new to me; my husband was a Protestant pastor for 15 years and it’s been only two years since we converted and started a mission parish.

Decades as white Southern Protestants hadn’t prepared us for Orthodox Lent. Back at the end of February we had”Meatfare Sunday.”From that day to this we haven’t eaten any meat. Then, the following week was”Cheesefare Sunday.”When Easter comes _ we call it Pascha _ we will have gone seven weeks without meat, cheese, milk, eggs, or any dairy products, and cut back on fish, olive oil, and wine.

The implications reach farther than you first might think. No milk for your breakfast cereal, no milk chocolate candy, no buttermilk pancakes. Forget substitute meals of tuna casserole, cheese pizza, or egg salad.”What do you eat?”people ask me, amazed.

We slurp a lot of vegetable soup and pasta with tomato sauce. There’s popcorn, corn chips with salsa, fruit salad. Cold bean salad, for goodness’ sake. The bread machine grinds away, day and night.

No wonder those big Easter hams and creme-filled chocolates seem to taunt us. Why go through all this?

When I first became Orthodox I assumed the Fast had to do with punishment: we self-flagellate to pay off our sins and earn the right to Easter. I had a childish memory of such a spiritual dynamic from long-ago days in Catholic Sunday school, making deposits in the Treasury of Merit.

Such a concept is alien to Orthodoxy, however. God gives everything as a free gift, so our disciplines can’t buy a thing. The Lenten Fast is instead about growing stronger. People say,”It’s like exercise”or”It’s like medicine”and, consistent with those analogies, individuals may seek their priest’s advice in tailoring the regimen to their needs.

But the Fast is expected to be more than just symbolic: It is a genuine sacrifice, one you’ll notice in your soul every day. It’s not whimsically individualized:”I wouldn’t miss meat, so I’ll give up television instead.”No, as far as we are able we fast alike, all around the world.

To converts from Western denominations, the Great Fast is just one of several unfamiliar disciplines. I can’t say these had an immediate, natural appeal. Orthodoxy’s demands prompt something of a gender mystery: men are attracted, women bewildered.

Most of the convert families I know were led by an enthusiastic husband, coaxing along a hesitant wife. It’s a guy thing, I suppose.

The Protestant pastor’s wife role had felt more sympatico to me: strumming guitar songs about Jesus’ love for us, teaching Bible studies about Jesus’ acceptance of us, counseling women to trust Jesus’ care for us. Somehow everything was about us.

Whatever we did, Jesus was up there in the balcony, looking on with a smile. But in our present church, the painting of Jesus in front of the altar shows him with an open Bible and a serious expression. Everything is about Him. I have to think about my sins there, and what the cross means. There, fasting makes sense.

I want to grow in self-control; I want to grow stronger. I begin to understand why experienced Orthodox say,”Every year I look forward to the Fast.” When Pascha comes, we can greet it as a people prepared. Consumer culture isn’t big on preparation; it can’t be merchandised. Public life lurches maniacally from celebration to celebration in a desperate quest for pleasure.

Western Easter concludes a two-month juggernaut of relentless fuzzy-pink Fun, then lunges on to Mother’s Day. Orthodox Pascha is out of step with America, and not only by a calendar week. Our celebration will be nearly invisible to our neighbors.

But we will celebrate a feast only our Fast could prepare, in the midst of a community formed by our shared discipline. We come to the feast a week after the West, carrying our baskets of half-priced candy.

DEA END MATHEWS-GREEN