www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Eucharistic Fast?

Friends,

Christ is Risen!
Glory to Jesus Christ!

Recently an Orthodox priest friend share with me that he had been invited to a local Byzantine Catholic neighboring parish for the BC parish's patronal feast. He recieved an invitation that listed cocktails then dinner then Divine Liturgy (evening Divine Liturgy, obviously). His comment to me was "don't BCs fast before communion?" I thought about that for a while. It seems to me that most BCs I know have adopted the RC practice of "fasting" one hour before receiving communion. I think that is even the current BC law. If I recall correctly from reading the "Instructions" of January 6, 1996 (from Rome), the more rigorous fasting laws are suggested.

Some Orthodox jurisdictions are more relaxed about fasting, I don't believe that the Eucharistic Fast however is relaxed. Fasting is from midnight (or time of going to bed) until the Eucharist itself breaks the fast.

I will appreciate comments on this.

Bob

How shocking! I hope the Orthodox priest will not be too offended by this arrangement. I hope he will accept the invitation anyway. Of course, he will not be going to communion, so he can eat his fill with no problem. Presumably also, many of those priests attending will have celebrated Liturgy in their parishes in the morning, and so will not be planning to receive the mysteries either, so most will be free to party!

The relaxation of the fast, has more to do with the permission for an evening Divine Liturgy. If you allow Divine Liturgy in the evening, many feel the fast becomes too difficult. The other problem is when priests are given permission to celebrate more than once. This task is very difficult, and makes for a very long Sunday morning without a cup of coffee.

The ideal solution, is not to begin by re-introducing the fast, but to forbid evening celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and ban the priests from celebrating more than once. But that is for an ideal world, and this is...

Elias

Dear Bob,

You've hit on a very important issue that illustrates the very notion of a "Particular Church."

If we are such and such a Church "in union with Rome," this means that not only the outward forms of our liturgical expression are different or unique, but the spirituality that underlines it as well.

Our regulations that guide our way of life as Christians are also in the hands of our own Hierarchs.

My in-laws (wonderful people!) reflect the position of a number of UC's when they follow the rule that maintains one hour for the Eucharistic Fast.

The reasoning is straightforward: The RC church has prescribed this new fast, we are Catholic as well, and so, why torture ourselves unduly? Shouldn't there be some progress and allowance made for conditions of modern living?

The Eastern Church adheres strongly to a patristic view of fasting that is also biblical, hungering and thirsting for righteousness sake and also the express command of Christ to fast, "after the Bridegroom is taken away."

As Schmemann wrote, after explaining that fasting is good spiritual medicine, if it can be shown that God somehow "needs" our fasting then one could make the argument that fasting can be lessened in terms of its rigor.

But since we are the ones who require fasting as our spiritual medicine, the physician (i.e. bishop) cannot withold what is required by us in this respect.

Alex

I think that the traditional Byzantine/Eastern way is a good one - fast from midnight. But, for an evening celebration, this is just not in the cards if one has to work for a living - and even if one doesn't.

In the agrarian societies, one could easily take time from the dawn hour to go to church and receive communion on feast days or other days of personal significance. In more urbanized societies, and especially in the 'post-industrial age', where corporations determine working hours, people can't get to church for a 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. weekday service since they have to be at work. In the "old days" of the recent past, many RC parishes had Mass at both 6 and 7 a.m., and so people could get to a 20 minute Latin Mass, return home, eat breakfast and be off to work in good time.

So for practical purposes, we Byzantines should either do it at 7:00 a.m. and go real fast, or we translate the service to the evening time, re-interpret the fasting regulations, and encourage the people to come.

Is it better to have 50 people at 7:30 p.m. or 5 people at 10:00 a.m.? (I go with the numbers myself. Just like Presanctified at Lent.)

Perhaps the evening fasting rule should be "no meat or dairy" during the daylight hours, and nothing at all for 3 hours prior to communion. (With the exception of water and any prescribed medications.)

Blessings!

Speaking as a Latin (once again, don't hold that against me! ), it amazes me that even the newer truncated fast is apparently too much for some people! I am constantly upbraiding my goddaughter/niece for eating breakfast before ten minutes before going to Mass on Sundays, and this at 8:30am! Her and my parents are usually back home before 10am, even when the old priest who sang the whole of Mass was celebrating! Of course, like the 11 year old she is, she complains of "hunger pains", mostly brought on by the fact that she eats something 10 minutes before going to sleep at night. This usually causes my father, the pious crumudgeon that he is (God bless him!), to begin his "I don't feel sorry for you" diatribe which generally disrupts the whole pre-Mass mood, getting my mother in a state and my niece in a bad mood. All this over a rather easy one hour fast! It's almost enough to begin a novena to St. Jude!

And then they wonder why I go to "that Greek church" on the other side of town! :p

I usually don't eat anything until I get back from church. It's not that difficult for me because I'm one of those people who gets up at the last minute and is usually rushing out the door so I can make it to church 15 minutes the liturgy starts so I can prepare myself.