www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Meatfare and Great Lent...a question

Sorry to belabor a point which no doubt has been answered elsewhere.

Do I understand correctly that the abstinence from meat, dairy, and eggs is Monday through Friday with Saturday and Sunday off? I believe I heard somewhere that we never fast on Sunday since it is the day of celebrating our Lord's Resurrection, right?

Any links to fasting and Lenten ascetic practices will be appreciated also.

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed

Dear Brother Ed,

Are you asking about Catholic or Orthodox practices?

Tony

Dear Ed, really there are two separate fasts working together throughout the Great Fast. The first is the ascetic fast, with which your questions are concerned. During Cheesefare Week, dairy and eggs can be taken but no meat.

The traditional ascetic fast is no eggs, dairy or meat through all of the Great Fast. Wine, oil and fish are not allowed on most week days, either. Wine, oil and fish are allowed on more festal days that occur before Pascha such as the Annunciation, Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. Other days allow wine and oil to be taken, including all Saturdays and Sundays of the Great Fast.

Traditionally during the first week of the Great Fast a complete fast was kept, no meals except for after Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesdays and Fridays, and these only being meals of "xerophagy" or "dry eating", meaning raw vegetables, nuts, honey, etc. Great and Holy Friday is also a day of strict and complete fast.

The second type of fast is the Eucharistic fast, which is broken Wednesdays and in some parishes Wednesdays and Fridays when the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is offered.

Again, this is a very brief summary of the traditional fasting practice and many eparchies have established their own mitigated guidelines for fasting. The traditional fast is a monastic fast and is quite severe. Any fasting practice should be first considered with health conditions, special dietary requirements (i.e. diabetic, anemic, etc.) and age taken into account.

Another word of caution. Fasting is one area especially that you should seek the guidance of your spiritual father or pastor when establishing any practice in your life. One can get far too caught up in the letter of the fasting regulations and become obsessed or completely scrupulous with regards to the observance of the regulations, or on the other hand just get lazy and try only to make the "minimum".

Also with certain health conditions you can also do harm to yourself. There are plenty of other pious practices that one can do if unable to fast from certain types of food that your spiritual father or pastor can suggest.

I believe the website containing this forum has the fasting practices for the Pittsburgh Metropolia listed somewhere or the Administrator can locate those for you.

For more information on the traditional fast you can look at www.monachos.net/great_lent/index.shtml [monachos.net] which also contains some other Lenten resources.

Lent is more about what you can give for God and less about what you can "give up".

Ohhhh....that's a NICE link. I bookmarked that for further reading. THANK YEW!!!!

Brother Ed

As a follow up to this, my wife and I were discussing our upcoming observance of the great fast and a question arose. She questioned whether children at all should observe the abstinance from dairy products. She wondered if their growing bodies would be damaged by avoiding these for a month and half or so.

I replied to her that probably for well over a millenia children have done this, without any known health reprecusions. But I was only speculating. Does anyone know if "traditionally" children with the entire family would observe the strict observance of the Great Fast.

Btw, I'm not thinking about starving my children. We are a rather indulgent family and are just considering ways to have a better approach which will lay good foundations for the whole family and hopefully generations to come.

Thanks for any advice on this.

Wm. Der-Ghazarian

That's a wonderful site Diak posted! I have a question, though. Why is the Byzantine Catholic Church a week ahead of the Orthodox? The site shows the Prodigal Son week as being February 23rd, while in the Byzantine Catholic Church I attend, it was on February 16th. Also, the site shows Great Lent beginning on March 10th, while in the Byzantine Church it starts on March 3rd.

I'm a bit confused (as usual )

God Bless,

Janka

The Byz Catholics are following Western tradition of calculating the Pascha without regard to the Jewish Passover (on a lunar calendar and which the Jews are currently calculating incorrectly). The Orthodox Churches (except Finland) are calculating Pascha the same way as the West, but then making sure that it falls after the Passover.

This is a hotly debated issue withing Orthodoxy in America.

Strictly, canonically speaking, the Western way is most correct, but liturgically and historically, the Orthodox way is more correct.

My understanding is that if we could get the Jews to correct their calendar, then West and East would have Pascha on the same day. Good luck!

In Christ.

Janka,

It's this New Calendar v Old Calendar thing all over again

Wait till next year - they coincide !!

Don't worry - I'm permanently confused by it

Anhelyna

Yeah --- anything to keep the schism going, right?

I wonder when we will begin to understand that the Lord looks more upon our hearts than how we cross each "T" and dot each "I"? I'm not talking about changing of major doctrines, such as the Sacraments here. We are talking about a DATE, for heaven's sake, of remembering our Lord's Passion.

Sad.

Brother Ed

The descent of the Holy Fire upon the Holy Sepulchre on the Lord's Pascha is enough for me!

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Don't forget, there are Greek Catholics that use the Old Calendar too!

But a good point has been made, it is certainly not just the Calendar that makes the Christian.

Differences in the calculation of the date of Pascha have nothing to do with the Julian vs. Gregorian calendars.

In Christ.

Dear in Christ Andrew,

Several learned people both Catholic and Orthodox have pointed out to me that it is the date of the vernal equinox that is a big part of the problem. For the Gregorian calendar it is March 21st. For the Julian calendar it should be April 3rd. Now, the issue of of Jewish Passover is also at hand but so is the issue of the dating of the equinox. If not, then how does one explain the 5-week difference of last year?

Tony

Tony wrote:

Good point. Is there anyone else out there that feels it is time for Byzantine Catholics to return to Orthodox practices for the various fasts of our Church?

Or, are we really not serious about reunion?

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Dear David Ignatius,

Yes, I feel it is time.