When do greeks fast

It is giving up candy, or it is done with the idea that we fast in order to suffer. But we do not fast in order to suffer. We fast in order to get a grip on our lives and to regain control of those things that have gotten out of control.

Fasting, as I have written, helps us to let go of the control food so often has on us. But if fasting itself starts to control us—if we spend countless hours reading every ingredient label and the like—then we can become just as controlled by our fasting and, in the process, miss the whole point of fasting in the first place.

Hence, an obsession with reading labels can be just as problematic as an obsession with food. The more attention we give to the spiritual life now, the more joy we will feel then. Do we remember that the Apostles were in fact criticised for their stance on these matters? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

When these 40 days are over, we will enter Holy Week. The Service underlines the idea that the Bridegroom will return to meet us. It reminds us of the Second Coming or our passing from this life, if that happens first , which will be unexpected. Caught, that is, between what has happened and what is to come. Now we are in the Engagement period, faithful to the One we are betrothed to. The Church is the Bride who waits to be joined to the Bridegroom.

Christ had likened the future Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding feast. What more joyful image could possibly have been chosen! Through his Commentary on the Gospel according to St Matthew chapter 9 , St John Chrysostom presented, in the most beautiful terms, a portrayal of Christ and His relationship with us all.

Delivered from the perspective of Christ, this is exactly the voice we wish to keep firmly in our hearts and minds, as we travel through the current period of fasting towards the feast of feasts: I am your father, I am your brother, your bridegroom. My challenge right now is the fasting. I have Celiac Sprue and it seems as though I should follow the Mediterranean I should follow all the time. Meats and I do not get along. So if I fast and follow this diet all the long like was suggested by my nutritionist, how do I incorporate the fasting?

What foods shall I remove for fasting? Do you have a book of recipes I can purchase? Hi Evelyn, There are no meats during the fasting. The diet is heavy on vegetables and beans which should be fine for you. You would only have to avoid gluten containing foods.

Can you also eat shellfish like shrimp or scallops? Thanks in advance! Can any grain, such as rice be substituted for bread? And because one cannot use oil, I presume the veggies must be steamed, cooked in water or eaten raw. Oil and wine, up until the last couple of centuries, were stored in skins of animals.

This is why we can eat grapes and olives, we cannot have wine or olive oil. If the fasting "rules" were ever to be reviewed and updated, the prohibition on oil and wine would have to be examined. We can eat shellfish because they do not contain blood. Christ shed His blood for us, so we do not consume any "blood" or "animal" products.

The week after the Publican and the Pharisee is fast free, as is the week after Pascha and Pentecost and Christmas. The week before Great Lent, we are only required to fast from meat, not dairy products. There is a forty day fast that precedes the Feast of the Nativity November December 24 , a fourteen day fast that precedes the Feast of the Dormition August , and the Holy Apostles Fast which begins the day after All Saints Day and lasts through June If you've never fasted before, I would not recommend doing a strict fast.

Try fasting from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent and then throughout the year , then next year try fasting Wednesdays and Fridays plus all of the first week of Lent and all of Holy Week. Then work up from that. We need to fast from things that get us in trouble - perhaps the television, alcohol, inappropriate materials on the computer and in movies, foul language, etc. Fasting also does not mean "looking" deprived, complaining about what you can't eat, or making a show of your fasting.

In fact, if you are fasting and you are invited to someone's home for dinner and they serve meat, eat the meat, don't make a big deal out of your fasting. Also, do not pass judgment on others who are not fasting to the degree you are. Saint Paul reminds us in Romans "Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him.