A little while back, I started working on an icon of the Nativity for my parish. I’m taking my time with this one, as it’s my first festal icon, and it has a level of complexity I’m not accustomed to. I’m making mockups and preparatory sketches. I’ve prepared the panel with size and gesso. I’ve come up with a rough outline of how I will approach the actual process of painting the panel. I am practicing painting many of the different features of this festal icon on their own before putting brush to panel. In short, I have laid a foundation of preparation.

It is fitting, then, that this icon will hang over the Table of Proskomedia—the table of preparation. Before the Divine Liturgy, the priest must prepare the gifts for the Eucharist, and he does so at the Table of Proskomedia in a short service (also called Proskomedia). Sometimes, Proskomedia is instead called Prothesis. In either case, while the word is translated to preparation, a more literal translation is offering or setting forth. That is, when we think about the service of Proskomedia, we are thinking of preparation and offering as the same thing.

This confluence of preparation and offering holds true in our lives in Christ beyond Proskomedia. In the example of the Nativity icon I’m working on, my preparation in all the steps that go toward the painting of an icon are an offering to God. By preparing, I am taking the time and talents God has given me, and I am offering back to Him. I do this knowing that when I take the time, talent, and materials that go into an icon when I’m painting it, and I offer it up to God, He will give it back in an even greater and more glorious way to me and to my parish community for the beautification and joy of the worship of God’s people.

In His love and mercy, my preparation allows me to become a better co-worker in my life in Christ. To me, preparation is a key element of the fundamental Orthodox doctrine of synergeia. We offer something up to God and He returns it even better to us—we may be co-workers (synergoi), but we aren’t the ones perfecting or completing. God is the one by whom we may join “every righteous spirit made perfect in faith,” as the priest says during the Liturgy. Our small offerings are small indeed compared to becoming, as Athanasius the Great tells us, little gods in Christ—partakers of the Divine Nature. Preparation is a way of offering up our future to God and having a plan to cooperate with His grace.

What does this have to do with anything for the faithful beyond this specifically ecclesial framework? Putting the answer to this question in perspective, I initially phrased the first sentence of this paragraph to say “this specifically liturgical context,” but that’s not quite right. This has to do precisely with liturgy—our small, personal or cultural/social liturgies that shape us and our desires (listen to “What is Liturgy and How Does it Work?” from The Areopagus on Ancient Faith Radio for a great discussion on this point). When we are preparing (and in our preparations, offering up our present and future to God), we are taking the first steps of asceticism. We are training ourselves like an athlete, trying to subdue our disordered will so that it can then be realigned with God and become perfected by Him and in Him. That is, preparation is a kind of asceticism in itself, which allows us to subsequently acquire virtue (see St Theodore the Great Ascetic’s “Theoretikon” in the Philokalia ). The preparations we take before diving into the more obvious parts of asceticism (fasting, almsgiving, increased prayer) are a vital aspect of making sure our ascetic struggles aren’t in total vain. If we begin with a plan, especially a plan to rely on God’s boundless grace to carry us where we are too weak to carry ourselves, we may advance toward our natural, restored end: reunion with God. If we don’t plan, we might find that our ascetic struggles become an exercise in vanity or futility; we become little Don Quixotes instead of little saints.

I recently realized that I am pretty out of shape again. The last time I had this realization, I simply started lifting weights and running. I tried to eat healthier when I paid mind to it. In the end, it didn’t work (which is why I’m noticing it again). I could take the same approach again. I could pretend to enjoy spinning my wheels with no strategy or concrete goal for three months before giving up. I do it this way with astonishing regularity, it seems. This time, however, I took a different approach to starting my efforts: I found a good strength and cardio program. I gathered the right equipment. I planned out how to establish a new pattern of eating. And I made sure I set a realistic course of action and had realistic goals. Even before I could make these simple preparations for my foray into better physical health and wellness, I had to plan to prepare—as silly as that sounds. I had to study different nutritional theories, exercise routines, and general habits of wellness. I propose that we ought to take this same routine in our lives in the Church when it comes to our ascetical efforts.

Of course, I’m currently thinking about Great Lent, which looms on the horizon. Lent is a time of preparation by asceticism for the Feast of Feasts. As someone who struggles with what St John Climacus calls, “that clamorous mistress, the stomach,” fasting isn’t always easy for me. It’s not easy for anybody. The same John writes, “I wonder if anyone has got free of this master [the stomach] before settling in the grave.” With this less than optimistic perspective on the stomach in mind, I am thankful that before Lent, the Church eases us into it with five Sundays of preparation. Father Thomas Hopkon of blessed memory gives pre-Lent a good treatment in Volume II of The Orthodox Faith. I will quote him here to summarize the five Sundays as the five steps toward Lent here:

Zacchaeus Sunday: “The desire and effort to see Jesus begins the entire movement through lent towards Easter. It is the first movement of salvation.” Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee: “ We are called to see ourselves as we really are in the light of Christ’s teaching, and to beg for mercy. “ Sunday of the Prodigal Son: “ We are given every assurance by the Master that the Father will receive us with joy and gladness. We must only “arise and go,” confessing our self inflicted and sinful separation from that “home” where we truly belong (Lk 15.11–24). “ Sunday of the Last Judgment: “It is not enough for us to see Jesus, to see ourselves as we are, and to come home to God as his prodigal sons. We must also be his sons by following Christ, his only-begotten divine Son, and by seeing Christ in every man and by serving Christ through them. “ Forgiveness Sunday: “ We identify ourselves with Adam, lamenting our loss of the beauty, dignity and delight of our original creation, mourning our corruption in sin. We also hear on this day the Lord’s teaching about fasting and forgiveness, and we enter the season of the fast forgiving one another so that God will forgive us. “

On the evening of the Sunday of the Last Judgment, we stop eating meat. On the evening of Forgiveness Sunday, we stop eating dairy and the fast begins in earnest.

You see, then, that the Church gives us quite a bit of time to prepare mentally and spiritually before we engage in any physical struggles. Zacchaeus Sunday is fast approaching. In our house we are trying to prepare for the period of preparation. We are making plans about how to teach the kids about Pre-Lent and Lent. We are discussing meal planning for the kids, who have asked us to participate in the fast but need to eat an appropriate amount of protein and fat for good development. We are just starting to discuss the liturgical schedule of Lent and Holy Week so that it doesn’t sneak up on us like it often does.

I volunteered to join Fr. E when he was teaching the kids after church last Sunday. His subject? Pre-Lent and Lent! He, too, wanted to prepare the kids for the time of preparation, to see them grow in faith and understanding, and to make sure they knew what was going on during the time building up to the Great Feast, since we parents don’t always do a great job (and because reinforcement from other adults is useful for kids even when the parents are doing a great job). It was a blessing to join, to observe, and to spend a few minutes leading the kids in their review of Fr E’s lecture/activities. It got the wheels turning on how to prepare for the period of preparation. My next post, which will be up sooner than is typical for me, will review the resources we are going to use as a family during Pre-Lent and Lent. I pray that this post helped prepare you to consider your own preparation and that the next post will aid in those preparations.