Fasting = one meal per day?

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Jean-Serge
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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by Jean-Serge »

Who knows what there is in other people's heart to assert that they have spiritual pride?

My opinion is entirely the opposite. A rule is a generic commandment that applies to the whole the community. The common rule says that fasting is one meal after 3 PM, period. If it were particularly strict and out of reach, it would not have been enforced on everybody. Consequently, the one who follows is not individualistic but simply follows the rule that was taylored for the full community. An approach is individualistic if it departs from the common rules defined for everybody.

If the strict rule used to be commonly followed (which I do not know because I do not have testimonies of past centuries let us say from 4th century to nowadays, so it is an assumption), and that nowadays nobody knows it or follows it, it questions the faith of, we, people of nowadays, or our laziness, or maybe our pride because we think we can depart from the rules without explicit blessing and without confessing it. In theory, the fact of not fasting properly should be said in confession, not the fact of fasting properly. Would someone from the past centuries have needed an explicit permission to fast according to the rules? I doubt so. So, why should someone from our time ask for such permission? Is it the one who follow the rule that needs guidance or the one who does not follow it, so that he can find at long term the way to follow them, even if temporarily, they are alleviated for him? We should not twist the things so that the one who follows the right tradition is now accused.

If everybody willing to come back to the pious customs is suffering spiritual pride, then the kollyvades were spiritually proud because they rejected the deficiencies in the practice of their time sticking to the rule rather than the decadent practice of the moment. Other examples. If I am lady and that in my church nobody wears the veil because nobody knows the rule, am I going to be accused of pride because I wear one, because I simply follow the rule? The same if I stand whereas most people sit? Moreover, if the fast is secret and that I do not feel superior to those who cannot do it i.e he does not judge them, there is no pride. Not following an error that became collective by mistake in order to stick to the rule is praiseworthy and not a symptom of pride. It is to be done even if those who are in error are a majority and scandalized.

That if one keeps the Divine commandments are others are scandalized, one should disregard their sense of scandal

Yes, I know that there is a kind of scandal that one should disregard. And what is this? Listen. When you perform one of God's commandment or observe the Divine and sacred canons of the Holy Apostles, or of the Ecumenical and local synods, or the Traditions of the Church, and, quite simply, when you strive to do the will of God, and another person is scandalized on this account, then you should disregard the "scandal" and carry out the commandment of God and observe the Divine and sacred canons, saying to those who are scandalized and would hinder you what the Apostles said to the Jews : "We ought to obey God rather than men"

From Christian morality, by Saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite Discourse X page 392-393

The problem I see on this topic is mostly ignorance. Most orthodox (even True orthodox) do not know the rule of one meal after 3 PM because they were never told; I was myself taught this by a non-orthodox! There is an utter silence on the topic, even from pastors Consequently, a part of the ascetical dimension of fasting is lost and ignored : someone who already fasts from meat and so on, will simply miss the next step (one meal after 3 PM rule) because nobody ever told him. Since fasting is closely linked to the spiritual life, it is hindering spiritual progress: it prevents to wonder oneself what one can add or change to his spiritual life in order to be able to meet the standards, it prevents from using the full weaponry of fasting against passions. Human nature has not changed, so the medicine to cure it from passions are the same.If the man from 6th century required fasting until 3 PM to curb passions and all, I do not see why the man from 21st century would not. Unless human nature changed meanwhile. I am afraid the only change that occured has been an increase in laziness leading to regard laziness as the Tradition per se, which is totally non sense.

If the rule was known, the benefits would be many : people would try to follow it, would make intensified spiritual efforts. Of course, not everybody would reach it, or not immediately but, but this, per se, is not a problem; spiritual progress is a constant journey in which you have always to progress, even for those eating dry bread and water once a day of course.

Priidite, poklonimsja i pripadem ko Hristu.

jgress
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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by jgress »

Jean-Serge, laziness is a sin, but so is pride and judging others. You accuse me of attributing pride to those who want to follow their own fasting rules, without respecting their spiritual fathers, but you have no compunction about accusing people of laziness when they don't fast according to your own standards of strictness. Stop it. I am NOT saying you shouldn't fast to the ninth hour or whatever other rule you want to follow; I'm saying you should consult your spiritual father before imposing any new rule on yourself. If he gives you a blessing to fast to the ninth hour, then fast to the ninth hour; if he does not give you a blessing, then don't. It's that simple. And I don't care if the unwritten rules of your local church don't match the rules you find written in some book. We're not a synagogue of the written law.

tradbulwark
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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by tradbulwark »

Jean-Serge, the Wednesday/Friday fasts that are not apart of any seasonal fast, are these one meal per day also?

jgress
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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by jgress »

tradbulwark wrote:

Jean-Serge, the Wednesday/Friday fasts that are not apart of any seasonal fast, are these one meal per day also?

According to strict observance, yes. There are some feast days such that, if they fall on Wed or Fri, oil and wine are allowed, and I think this also means that you don't need to fast all the way to 3pm, but I've never been clear on that. Jean-Serge might know.

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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

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I accused nobody of laziness and I aimed at no particular person in particular but always talked in general ways, saying that in general "we" are lazy. Quotation : "it questions the faith of, we, people of nowadays, or our laziness, or maybe our pride because we think we can depart from the rules without explicit blessing and without confessing it. In theory, the fact of not fasting properly should be said in confession, not the fact of fasting properly." We means a number of persons including the narrator i.e myself. I never said at any moment that I was fasting until 3 PM but I advocated for this practice since it was meant to be normative and reminding it could have some beneficial effects. And I wondered why it was not reminded by the pastors that this is the ideal target, because as far as I know, pastors are supposed to teach.

Regarding the blessing of the spiritual father, it can be complicated. First you should have one to ask. Spiritual fatherhood mostly no longer exists. There are priest who hear confessions having more or less time for this depending on the attendance, but a confessor and a spiritual father are two different things. Add to this those who are isolated and do not have an easy access to a priest, even a simple one to hear confessions and on the top of this, the difficulty to find a suitable spiritual father (because the spiritual father is to be chosen with care and properly), and once found to establish a relationship in which he knows you well enough... so, the "ask your spiritual father" answer is far from being obvious and easy. In America, in a big city like New-York, you might have easy access to priests but it is not the same elsewhere. But even if you are alone, you have the writings of the Fathers to guide you.

tradbulwark wrote:

Jean-Serge, the Wednesday/Friday fasts that are not apart of any seasonal fast, are these one meal per day also?

Yes, in theory, in fact the fasts of Wednesday and Friday are supposed to be similar to the fast of Great Lent. You can read about this here : http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/exo_fasting.aspx

Please, note however that between Easter and Ascencion (or Pentecost, I would need to check) , Wednesday and Friday fasts are with oil and wine (and according to some practices, with fish), which means two meals per day. In a fast day, when there is oil and wine authorized, this means you can have two meals and eat normally (no need to wait until 3 PM as correctly said in the previous message).

Priidite, poklonimsja i pripadem ko Hristu.

tradbulwark
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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by tradbulwark »

Jean-Serge wrote:

Yes, in theory, in fact the fasts of Wednesday and Friday are supposed to be similar to the fast of Great Lent. You can read about this here : http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/exo_fasting.aspx

Please, note however that between Easter and Ascencion (or Pentecost, I would need to check) , Wednesday and Friday fasts are with oil and wine (and according to some practices, with fish), which means two meals per day. In a fast day, when there is oil and wine authorized, this means you can have two meals and eat normally (no need to wait until 3 PM as correctly said in the previous message).

Thank you.

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Re: Fasting = one meal per day?

Post by jgress »

Forgive me, Jean-Serge, for accusing you of judgment. But I do think your advice should be treated with caution. In my jurisdiction, we don't make a rigid distinction between confessor and spiritual father. It could be that by "spiritual father" you are thinking of old-style monastic elders to whom people pledged complete obedience in everything, even the smallest details of daily life. I'm not talking about that kind of thing, but in my church confessors have more of a role than simply hearing sins and reciting the forgiveness prayer. They are also responsible for instructing their spiritual children on when to receive Communion and when not to receive, and they also instruct them on how to maintain prayer rules and other rules of spiritual life, such as fasting or almsgiving. I was taught not to create my own fasting regimen, for example, but to fast according to the measure imposed by my confessor/spiritual father.

I think that if you really have no priest you can talk to for guidance on prayer or fasting, your top priority should be to find someone. I understand the difficulty of finding someone to speak to face to face in True Orthodoxy; many of us are so isolated. But at least we have telephones and the internet, which should make it a little easier to contact someone far away. But aside from that, I just think it's dangerous to imply that people should do what it says in some book and NOT what their own confessor or spiritual father told them to do. If this is not what you were implying, I'm sorry for misunderstanding.

That being said, if you are zealous to keep the traditional rules of fasting until 3pm and the rest, you should certainly ask your priest about this. The more we can subdue our flesh, the better it is for us. Just be sure that we are not making the offering to the devil in a spirit of pride, but to God in a spirit of humble obedience.

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