Today is “Clean Monday”, the first day of the Great Fast. Over the past two weeks we have prepared for the fast by gradually removing “heavy” foods, meat, and dairy from our diet, in preparation for the traditional Lenten discipline.

But “Clean Monday” does not only refer to the start of the annual ascetic experience, where we “lighten” our physical bodies, as a means of also “lightening” and “quickening” our spiritual and mental state; for yesterday was the commemoration of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, and “Forgiveness Sunday”.

During Vespers, we approach one another and ask forgiveness for offences we have caused, which remain unresolved from the previous year. Asking of, and extending to one another forgiveness, we remove the burden of anger, resentment, guilt, and hurt, “lightening” one another’s spirits, just as the asceticism of food lightens our bodies, improving the agility of our minds.

Asceticism is not about suffering. Rather it is about peeling away the cares, worries, resentments, desires and emotions that “weigh” us down, make us sluggish to respond to grace, and the calling of God in our life. Each week during the Liturgy we are reminded of the need to approach the divine presence free, and open, ready to receive what God has to offer, when we sing the Cherubikon: . . . let us now lay aside all earthly care, that we may receive/welcome the King of All, invisibly escorted by angelic hosts. Alleluia!

During Lent, we each in our own way, take this opportunity to dig a little deeper, to be that little bit more aware of the process of peeling away those distractions that anchor us to points of suffering; in so doing, we prepare to enter the Great Feast open, un-burdened, and free, ready to receive all that the grace of the Resurrection has to offer.