Holy Cross-Ss. Constantine and Helen

Beloved in Christ:

Sometimes when we enter the period of the Fast, we miss the big picture. We are concerned with keeping the fast, with eating the right foods and making sure that we do it right! We have to be perfect! It is truly a good and pious practice to adhere rigorously to the fast, and this is what we are asked to do during the period of Great Lent. The issue is not one of simply abstaining from foods, but rather of looking more deeply to understand as to what ends we are fasting.

If we look to the Gospels, we remember the parable of Christ and the Disciples walking through the fields on the Sabbath day picking the heads of grain and eating them. Remember a time in America when everything was closed on Sunday? Sunday was a strict Christian Sabbath. There was no working on Sunday.   The Jewish Sabbath was even stricter. No work was to be done whatsoever. The Pharisees were very critical of Christ and the Disciples because they were working on the Sabbath. But, they failed to see what was really happening. The Disciples were doing this out of necessity because they were hungry. Christ rebuked the Pharisees and reminded them “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Not working on the Sabbath, while having its pious purposes, did not make a person righteous or justified in the eyes of God. It was God’s gift to humankind, giving him a day when he was required to do absolutely nothing and to rest. He was forbidden from working on the Sabbath so that he did not have the temptation to work.   In our hectic lives that we are living, I’m sure many of us would appreciate being told, “Don’t work today!”

If we take Christ’s words and apply them to the fast, we understand the Great Fast in a different light. “The fast was made for man, not man for the fast.” The intensity of our fasting does not make us righteous or justified in the eyes of God; in fact, we need to be careful that in the intensity of our fasting that we do not become proud and start to believe we are justified simply because we fasted properly.   When we fast, it is important for us to remember that the fast was made for us! It is our opportunity to cleanse our bodies from the impurities that have been building. Through the cleansing of our bodies, we are reminded of the cleansing that needs to take place in our souls as well.

When we fast, the rich foods are not constantly at our fingertips and we remind ourselves, once again, that our reliance is on God as The Giver of life.   When we hunger for food and food is not available, we turn our hearts to God to provide. We recall the children of Israel praying to be delivered from their hunger and how the manna from heaven was provided for them. Perhaps, we are not physically in danger of going hungry today or tomorrow; but each of us has areas in which we are starving, in which we are blind or choose not to see. When we experience hunger in our stomachs, we begin to recognize the hunger that exists elsewhere. We forget about feeding the hole in our stomachs and start feeding the hole in our souls. The fast exists to open us up to prayer and to see God more clearly. The fast does not exist on its own or to justify us. It exists for us to cling to God in prayer.

God bless you!

With love in Christ,

+Father Felix