Fasting For Lent

On the observance of lent
The Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East and its disaspora
follows the Julian calendar in observing Easter and the great lent
prior to it. The Syriac Orthodox Church in India and its diaspora
observes Easter according to the Gregorian calendar (the switch
happened in 1953). This year Easter falls on April 16th according to
the Gregorian calendar and a week later according to the Julian. The
Great Lent in the Gregorian calendar starts on the seventh Monday
prior to Easter (In 2006, Julian - Mar 6, Gregorian - Feb 27th). (To
learn more about the Syriac Orthodox calendar, go to
http://sor.cua.edu/Calendar).

Traditionally, the Church observes fasting from food from dawn until
late afternoon and practises abstinence from all animal products
(diary, poultry, fish and meat) during lent. Certain relaxations were
permitted in the middle of the last century. This makes it an
obligation for the faithful to observe strict fasting only on the
first 10 and last 10 days as well as all Wednesdays and Fridays.
During other days in between fish is permitted in the diet.

Thomas Joseph

John Cassian on Fasting

I shall speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite to gluttony, and
about how to fast and what and how much to eat. I shall say nothing on my own
account, but only what I have received from the Holy Fathers. They have not
given us only a single rule for fasting or a single standard and measure for
eating, because not everyone has the same strength; age, illness or delicacy of
body create differences. But they have given us all a single goal: to avoid
over-eating and the filling of our bellies... A clear rule for self-control
handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not
continue until you are satisfied.

John Cassian

Fasting

Fasting

Adam fell because he desired something other than Christ.
Adam fell because he dropped Christ as the center of his life.
The essence of the fall was pride. It is indeed the love of the self that awakens all the desires. As the person is subject to the worship of the self, he or she is then is not able to love God or to be near him. Thus, what is the greater cross of the human other than the cross of crucifying the self. In the Orthodox Church then, we find the icon of the crucified monk, the monk that has crucified his passions and his desires. This icon is then the icon for all of us.

This is the essence of the fast, that we crucify this inherent selfishness so that we may love others. For Christ's love in this world is a crucified love.

It is so that fasting in the church is not only to fool our nutritional system; in fact, it is warfare against the passions. We find that this warfare does not lie at the foundation of modern society's attitude towards fasting.

The time of fasting is an invitation for us to come in deep repentance at the feet of Christ as the start of the fasting is to realize that I am limited, I am created and that my Lord Christ is at the centre of all things.

Fasting is a sign that God is the Source of life and not bread. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In fasting, we grieve over one fundamental thing and that is sin. The greatest sorrow after we indulge in sin is that we have lost our saintship. St. Siloan of Athos said of this, "For we should not fear anything else but sin, for through sin we lose grace." Thus fasting is the most potent cure for the most dangerous sin that threatens our Christian lives constantly: pride. With Jesus Christ as our desire, fasting is the way. Fasting is a way with no end. Perhaps Christianity is not the way to the world because its way undermines all of humanity's abilities. Christianity does not fail with prayer and fasting.

And what is more dangerous in our fasting than to look at others and judge. For this is hell; hell is looking at others and forgetting our own vices. This is our sin as Christians. Looking at the Orthodox icon, we find it telling us something important. We find the saints in the icons are never looking up to heaven because the Kingdom of God is in them. This means that if the Kingdom of God does not dwell within us, then we will not be able to look at another person with love, to embrace him with love. For if we are not born continually of the Holy Spirit we will not be patient, long suffering, and persevering with our fellow brother or sister.

Thus, during the fast, there exists a a dual path: one to Christ and the other to our fellow brother and sister. However, if I have just moved from one vice to another vice, then I have failed from my target as I have not loved another. For if my fast is not done so that I can love Christ and my fellow man, then my fast is vain. Thus says St. John Chrysostom, "How can you fast from meat when you eat the flesh of your brother?"

Orthodoxy is the stand before the other person. The person who never knew love shall stand on the Last Day to be judged accordingly for the soul that does not know love does not the Christ. So, it is not wrong to struggle and consecrate our lives to Christ, but it is wrong to consecrate our struggle apart from loving others. The goal of the spiritual struggle is that we are changed into a new creation through our Lord Jesus Christ. On this says St. Basil the Great "For the goal of the spiritual struggle (asceticism) is to reconcile the soul that fell and corrupted itself."

The cry of the church this day and all days is this: "Adorn your hearts, not your clothes."

Amen.

May the grace of God be with you in everything you do.

Servant of Christ,
Ray Abdelmalek
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FellowshipofBelievers/

sign of Jonah

By Fr. Antonious Henein

Chapter Seven

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh , and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?"

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said He would do unto them; and He did it not." (3:5-10).

Just imagine what would happen if a man came to our city and preached as Jonah had to the Ninivites! Would our response be as instantaneous and as heartfelt as theirs? As simple as they were, the words of his prophecy alone cannot account for the people's overwhelming reaction to Jonah. Indeed, his presence itself was all the people needed to take his warning seriously, because here before them stood a man who was himself a sign from God (see Lk. 11:30). By the power they could feel emanating from him, coupled with his words, the people from high to low estate collectively donned sackcloth and fasted for forty days and nights. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know ourselves to exceed the Ninevites in evil and to fail them in repentance. It is at best lukewarm, and our fasting is hardly from the deepest parts of our hearts. Rather than wearing sackcloth, we prefer luxury and lasciviousness. And if any of us actually "cries" unto the Lord, who among us cries mightily? Who has really turned from his evil way and the violence of his hands?

For this reason, our Lord Jesus Christ fasted in the desert forty days and nights on our behalf. Only the fasting of the God-man is truly pure, powerful, and acceptable to the Lord. By fasting then, He fasts with us now to compensate for and to complete our lukewarm fasting, so that it might rise as a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord Pantokrator. The Father's acceptance of our fast does not result from the act of fasting itself or from any righteousness we bear within ourselves, but from the righteousness inherent in Christ's blessed fast itself, which infinitely surpasses the fast of the Ninevites.

But just as the people of Nineveh fasted together as one, so do we together with one another in Christ. In Him, we form a sacred community of believers who are the Body of Christ. This Body is indeed a "Communion of Saints", Saints perfected in their striving done in unity with the Head of the Body. Within this community, with which I am so unworthy to be united, I find support for my constitutional weakness and succor for my failings. Our unity with one another in the Lord strengthens our wills and gives us hope should we stumble along the Way. All who profess to be believers in Christ need to discover and to share as fully as possible in the fullness of the fellowship of the Saints.

Lest we fail to emphasize it, both Jesus' Baptism and Jonah's watery descent were followed by fasts of the sacred number of forty days. The relationship between Baptism and fasting and the analogy between the "Sign of Jonah" and the mystery of salvation in Christ's death and Resurrection inspired the Church to place the Fast of Nineveh between the Feast of Epiphany and Great Lent. Like God in His verbal icon found in the Book of Jonah, the Church draws together these archetypal themes to instruct Her children using symbol and liturgy in the need to follow the Lord Christ in all things.

Chapter Eight

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, "I pray Thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."

And the Lord said, "Doest thou well to be angry?"

So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

And God said to Jonah, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And he said, "I do well to be angry, even unto death."

Then said the Lord, "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left; and also much cattle?" (4:1-11).

After God had lifted him up to partake in His mystery of salvation, Jonah returns to his sinful self with a vengeance. We, like Jonah, only too easily turn from participation in God's mysteries of grace and loving-kindness to descend once again to lap the vomit of our sinfulness like dogs! Like Jonah as well, we are ever free, by God's design, to renounce repentance at any time, even after receiving great spiritual gifts of His favor. But, thanks be to God, the Lord also doesn't give up on Jonah (or us) that easily. In the plant that springs up in a night to be killed the next night, God gives Jonah an object-lesson in the preciousness of all life in God's eyes. Even the cattle in the city concern the Lord, and "are you not much better than they?" (Mt. 6:26). Like the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jonah begrudges the Father's celebration of his brothers' repentance. We who call ourselves Christians really cannot stand in judgment of poor Jonah though, when we ourselves, chosen to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, lack the charity or the single-heartedness to love God completely and to care for the souls of those around us. We also fail to live up to our calling in "the Sign of Jonah."

John Cassian on Fasting

I shall speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite to gluttony, and
about how to fast and what and how much to eat. I shall say nothing on my own
account, but only what I have received from the Holy Fathers. They have not
given us only a single rule for fasting or a single standard and measure for
eating, because not everyone has the same strength; age, illness or delicacy of
body create differences. But they have given us all a single goal: to avoid
over-eating and the filling of our bellies... A clear rule for self-control
handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not
continue until you are satisfied.

John Cassian

Saint John Chrysostom on Fasting

Saint John Chrysostom:

When the fast begins, let us get ready and polish our spiritual weapons;

as cultivators, let us sharpen our sickles; as sailors, let us order our

thoughts against the waves of extravagant desires; as travelers, let us set

out on the journey towards heaven; and as wrestlers let us strip for the

contest. For the Christian is at the same time a soldier, a sailor, a plower

and wrestler. Saint Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,

but against the powers of evil. Put on therefore the whole armor of God.”

St. Basil on Fasting

Saint Basil the Great:

We have been exiled from the fist earthly paradise because we didn’t

fast. Now we must fast in order to get back to the heavenly paradise.

Fasting enables us to recover due to Adam’s failure to fast, and

reconciles us with God.

John of Kronstadt on Fasting

The carnal way of life constitutes death. If you wish to live long, live through the spirit; for the life consists in the spirit: “If you through the spirit mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live,” both here on earth and there in heaven. Observe fasting, temperance and simplicity in food and drink; do not foolishly squander the balsam of your life; do not seek after riches or luxury; strive to be contended with little; keep peace with all, respect and love all, envy none; and, above all, strive ever to bear Christ in your heart, and you shall live in peace.

Fr. John of Kronstadt – My Life in Christ