When Does 7 Times 7 Equal 40?
Let me wish all of you first of all a Blessed Lent and a good journey towards the day of Resurrection. Or as we say in Greek, Kali Sarakosti---literally, “Good Forty (-Days). In this 40-day fast, we imitate Christ’s fast in the wilderness after His baptism, which culminated in His victory over the temptations of the devil.
Now let’s do some math. From Clean Monday (March 3 in 2025) until Easter (April 20 in 2025) there are seven weeks. That’s 49 days. Why call it the “Forty Days Fast” when it isn’t?
The answer is beautifully Byzantine in every sense of the word. You see, in the Orthodox Church, Saturdays and Sundays in Lent aren’t really Lent. A Lenten day is a day of compunction, of sorrow for sin and of contemplation leading towards repentance and reform. It is therefore a day of strict fasting and prayer, without celebration or joyous expressions. The Divine Liturgy cannot be celebrated on days of Lent. (The one exception is for the great feast of the Annunciation, when the Liturgy is celebrated and fasting is broken with the consumption of fish.)
But in our Church, Saturday and Sunday are not days of strict fasting in any season, and the Divine Liturgy is celebrated on them. Even in Lent, instead of penitential purple of the weekdays, the priest and the altar are vested in the white or gold colors of joy. The prayer of Saint Ephraim is not read on these days either, as it should be on the weekdays of Lent. So in our Church, we move in and out of Lent seven times during the course of the Great Fast.
All right, … so from our original 49 days, we subtract 14 for the Saturdays and Sundays, leaving ourselves with a Lent of only 35 days. Still we miss the mark! But wait! The day before the Resurrection, Holy Saturday, IS a day of strict fasting. This is the one exception in the Church Year. The Liturgy that we celebrate on Holy Saturday morning is really the Sunday resurrection service, observed half a day early “by anticipation,” like most of the other services of Holy Week. [You will notice that in Holy Week we do morning services (matins, or Orthros) in the evenings and evening services (vespers) in the mornings. Your guess is a good as mine.]
So Holy Saturday is a Lenten day, bringing our total back up to 36. Now, remember that in Biblical and ecclesiastical reckoning, a new day starts at sundown the night before: Monday begins liturgically on Sunday evening, just as in the book of Genesis (1:5), where “there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Recall that the Paschal liturgy doesn’t begin until midnight. This means that from sundown at the end of Holy Saturday until the Anastasis service, there is (roughly) half a day more of fasting on Easter Sunday itself. This means that our Orthodox Lent is technically 36 ½ days long: an exact tenth—a Biblical tithe—of our 365-day year!
Of course, we still are short of the Christ-like 40 days of fasting. In order to make up for this deficiency, the Church appointed a pre-Lenten period of modified fasting in order to sneak in a few more days to make a full 40. For example, the week before Lent is called Cheesefare Week: it is not a week of strict fasting since dairy is allowed, but is nonetheless somewhat Lenten in character. We borrow the Wednesday and Friday of that week, which are made Lenten in the sense that no Liturgy may be performed on those days. This gets us just about to 40 days.
But let me return to the chief point of this math exercise: the period of Lent is considered a tithe to the Lord of our year. And what is a tithe? A tithe is a gift that we give to ourselves. A tithe is not alms. Alms are what you give to someone else who is in need. A tithe is what you give in support of an institution that serves you.
Drop a dollar at the church, and you are investing a buck in your own religious education, your own spiritual formation, and your own intercession before the throne of God, both while you are living and after you are gone. (Where else are people going to be praying for you, if not at your church?) It’s also an investment in your children’s earthly and eternal well-being. In giving your stewardship, you are making a gift to yourself, really.
In the same way, Great Lent is for you. The extra services aren’t for God---He doesn’t live for your flattery. Paradoxically, worship is for you. Worship changes us. Rubbing elbows with the angels ennobles the rest of our lives. And Lenten worship in particular is so different from our regular Sunday services. Don’t think of Lent as a 40-day prison sentence of bread and water: think of it as a stay in an exclusive spa, where you are pampered—and challenged—by a special diet and a new exercise routine.
Use the “excuse” of weekday services to break out of your tired old schedule and dive inward, to the depths of your heart, where the Holy Spirit waits to meet you. The Bank of Orthodoxy pays out a high return on every hour invested in prayer. Watch how God will change your life when you give him some of your spare time. (Yes, you do have spare time—you just need a reason to find it.)
Try tithing your time in Church this Lent, and you’ll find that 40 days isn’t long enough!