Glory to God we here in the midst of the Nativity fast. I hope you find ways that you can fast with your lifestyles, work schedules and dietary needs. For me, during fasting periods when I eat breakfast, I like loaded oatmeal and fried potatoes. If I make the oatmeal it is more of a porridge with Amaranth and Craisins and berries! But I only eat breakfast just a couple times a week as I have adjusted over time and my body now allows me to abstain from eating from evening till 11 or 12 the next morning, just like before Liturgy! Maybe it’s a getting older thing? And then after a good 40 day fast, I schedule my doctor’s visit for a checkup, hoping that staying away from meat and eating a lot of grains helps my blood test results and my weight!
As a convert, learning to fast was a bit of a learning curve as I navigated my blood sugar drops and depleted energy levels. I try not eating fasting foods during non-fasting times and vice versa. I have actually learned to yearn for the changes in my diet as each season approaches. I actually weary of certain foods and happily await a dietary change. Well, it has taken some time. And so it is with the process of becoming Orthodox, it takes time!
In my earlier life, fasting was not something we practiced as Western Christians. I am not sure what happened with this discipline during the modernization of Christianity. But as I look in the scripture, I can find 25 references in the New Testament alone about fasting. It must be something important!!
One of the most well known references is found in Matthew 4:1-2:”Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered.” In the 300’s Saint Hilary describes Christ fasting this way: “He was hungry after forty days, not during the forty days. Accordingly, it was not that the consequences of His abstinence overtook Him, but that He surrendered the Man Christ to the order of His nature. For not by God was the devil to be overcome, but by flesh.” [In Matt. ii, in Toal, II:5.] (Saint Hilary of Poitiers - c. 310 – c. 367)
Did you hear that? Your flesh will battle the evil one, or you can chose to chase after evil and deny your salvation. St. Athanasius the Great describes fasting this way: “Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with angels.” (St. Athanasius the Great Pope of Alexandria from 328 to 373)
Let us not also forget the 40 day fasting done by Moses and Elijah. Additionally, the intertestamental book of The Life of Adam and Eve 6:1 will add that Adam engaged in a forty-day fast in penitence for his fall (the Slavonic adds that Eve fasted forty-four days). Adam and Eve were never commanded to fast in the Bible; yet, their fast is recognized as a sign of their sorrow and repentance. This type of fasting is pretty common in the church today and is done as an exercise for repentance, and hope for guidance and forgiveness from God. It is a time to step back and take a breath and realign our direction, West or East?
St. Theophylact writes: “He hungered only when He permitted His nature to do so, to give the devil an opportunity through hunger to approach Him and engage Him in combat, so that Christ could throw him down and vanquish him and grant us the victory.” (The Explanation by Theophylact, pg. 38) And we read in Philippines: Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us. For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things (Phil 3.17–19).
St. Symeon the New Theologian adds:"Fasting gradually disperses and drives away spiritual darkness and the veil of sin that lies on the soul, just as the sun dispels the mist. Fasting enables us spiritually to see that spiritual air in which Christ, the Sun who knows no setting, does not rise, but shines without ceasing. Fasting, aided by vigil, penetrates and softens hardness of heart. Where once were the vapors of drunkenness it causes fountains of compunction to spring forth.” (The Discourses: XI no. 2, Paulist Press pg. 168)
Remember that the first sin of Adam and Eve was through food, and they were dispelled from the garden. Of course not everyone can follow the fasting letter of the law. For those with special diets and such, allow your priest to help you. And by all means, during fasting times make more time for prayer, almsgiving and spiritual reading. Christians must do these exercises to loosen the grip the world has on us. Just tell your bellies no, or not now, and take control of your temple!
Fr. Gabriel Weller 12-8-24
Saint Isaac of Syria says, “Meager food at the table of the pure cleanses the soul of those who partake from all passion . . . for the work of fasting and vigil is the beginning of every effort against sin and lust . . . almost all passionate drives decrease through fasting.”
