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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"…the intention behind the prescribed fasting periods of the Church is not to deprive us of any good thing. Rather, fasting adds depth to who we are as a person and as an icon of Christ\u2014it deepens our appreciation for what we have and cannot have. Moreover, fasting is the Church\u2019s great teacher of obedience. By teaching us to suppress our own will, especially as it pertains to something as fundamental to life as the food that we eat, we learn how to make our own will secondary to the will of God. The merging of one\u2019s will with the will of Christ is an indication of a mature faith, following the example of our most-holy Lady, the ever-Virgin Theotokos. If we approach fasting as an opponent to be vanquished, then it can be a heavy burden to bear, but if we approach it with meekness, fasting can be a pleasant, even a joyful, experience.<\/p>\n
We can fast by simply being dutifully obedient, holding to the fast by the sheer power of our determination. For some people, this approach leads to success and, on Christmas day [or Pascha], with all the satisfaction of one who has completed the fast, they will be able to enjoy every food and beverage that they\u2019ve been longing for. Other people, however, may find this approach to be perilous. By relying solely on the strength of our will, the forty days will test our resolve, but is it a practice of faith? Furthermore, in flexing one\u2019s willpower like this, we may be tempted to see ourselves as a spiritual heavyweight and to look down upon those who do not fast as rigorously as we do. Eventually, as the focus of such fasting shifts to oneself, our ascetical offerings cease to bring us closer to Christ, which He warned us about when I le said not to be like the hypocrites who only fast to be seen by others. (Mt 6:16).\u00a0 \u00a0If we fast with meekness, on the other hand, the fast feels lighter to carry, just as our Lord approached the Cross with meekness…<\/p>\n
–\u00a0 Newsletter of St. Gregory Palamas Monastery in Ohio<\/p>\n
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…the intention behind the prescribed fasting periods of the Church is not to deprive us of any good thing. Rather, fasting adds depth to who we are as a person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9439,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437\/revisions\/9439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}