Despite the fact that the basic requirements of fasting are set out in any church calendar, believers and non-believers have a variety of questions on this topic. How to adequately prepare for the beginning of the Great Lent? How to spend the first week?
Priest Ioann Kurbatskiy:
The Church starts to prepares Christians for the Great Lent several weeks before it begins with special services, hymns, gospel and apostolic readings, and sermons by pastors. And also with a special regulations on food. It’s good to start reading patristic homilies about fasting and fighting with passions in advance. It is good to plan and assign yourself a daily prayer rule and daily reading for the entire Great Lent.
The main condition for entering into fast is given in the Gospel.
If you forgive people’s sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins (Matthew 6:14).
This is the absolute condition for the forgiveness of our sins. God does not demand mortification of flesh or supernatural works, but demands forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean just saying: “I’m sorry” – “God will forgive.” It means to really forgive inside your heart and to blot out all revenge and malice from it. And ask for forgiveness yourself.
We sin a lot against God and people. On the eve of the Great Lent, let us ask forgiveness for our sins and debts: children from parents, parents from children, spouse from spouse, and so on. And let’s maintain peace with everyone during the Lent and throughout our lives.
Venerable Ephraim the Syrian said so:
If you, a man, do not forgive everyone who has sinned against you, then do not bother yourself with fasting and prayer…God will not accept you.
In our parish we have a tradition to ask each other for forgiveness on Forgiveness Sunday. The rector does this first, turning to people after the sermon, asking forgiveness for any sin he has committed in word, deed, and thought. Then all Christians ask each other for forgiveness. On this day there are a lot of people in the church, as if on a big feast.
I know that in many parishes they pray throughout the whole first week of Lent. We pray only on Monday and Tuesday. We do not have enough strength for more, there is no one to read and sing. But we pray in church every day to the Great Night Service with the penitential canon of St. Andrew of Crete. We schedule it for 18:00 so that every working person could have time to come and pray.
Many fast for the first week and prepare for confession.
Priest Ioann Sevastyanov:
Recently I came across the words of St. John Chrysostom that one should neither reduce nor add to one’s personal feat and labour, but maintain constancy and measure.
In terms of preparing for the Great Lent, this could not be more appropriate. You need to prepare for fasting as the Typikon dictates. And if possible, comply with this Typikon. Both in relation to prayer and in relation to food. Fasting itself is our preparation. There is no need to prepare for preparation.
It is better to enter into fasting with an open heart and wait for what the Lord is going to do for me this time. I think everyone, who has fasted at least a few fasts, has noticed that every time after fasting we get different results, different states of mind, although we fast the same way.
Therefore, we know that the result of fasting is what the Lord sends to us. And He sends us gifts according to His good mercy. And, of course, we shouldn’t accumulate anger and resentment all year long, so that on Forgiveness Sunday we have something to ask forgiveness for. Ask for forgiveness when conflict and hostility arise, and not when everyone is doing it for the sake of words.
The church Typikon prescribes abstinence from food in the first days of fasting, and dry eating on the remaining days. What does this mean and how obligatory is it for the laity to fulfill these requirements?
Priest Ioann Kurbatskiy:
Holy Fathers unanimously speak about fasting with reasoning. This means that we have to take on the feat which is within our strength, so that we have strength to pray and work. It is important to endure the entire fast. It often happens that people with
illnesses begin to fast very strictly. They last for a week, and then their illnesses worsen, and they are no longer able to move on and break their fast.
This is similar to the situation when an athlete runs 100 meters at full speed and falls exhausted. And the other, albeit slowly, will cover the entire distance of 10 km. In other words, it is better to eat the entire fast with oil, than to fast for one week and then eat cottage cheese, kefir, etc.
Fasting is the strictest during the first and the last weeks. But some Typikons allow the consumption of food daily, because we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” I have known such zealous people, especially of young age, who zealously took up the challenge of not eating, but the next morning they could not get up and had no strength to pray.
Abba Isaac said:
Just as healthy vision strives for light, so fasting, if done with reasoning, strives for prayer. And when you begin to fast, your mind awakens and seeks conversation with God.
Prayer should be the criterion for the severity of fasting. If a person fasts and is able to pray, and is also able to do his work, then let him observe the fast with all severity.
Dry eating is eating uncooked food without vegetable oil. According to the Typikon, it is supposed to be on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But most working Christians eat just food without oil on weekdays. On the advice of the spiritual father, oil may be allowed on weekdays, and not only Saturday and Sunday. By the way, for some reason very few people know about the existence of olive, linseed, mustard, and other healthy vegetable oils. People often only ask for a blessing to relieve the fast, while to strengthen the fast one must also take a blessing. You should not be afraid to fast, or of any kind of labour for salvation.
Sometimes people come to confession and say: “Only one sin – I can’t fast.” You need to pay more attention to your salvation, read spiritual literature, pray fervently to God in order to see the sin in yourself more deeply and repent of it. To understand that the inability to fast is a consequence of the fact that the soul is affected by more serious sins. For example, a person had a sinful lifestyle for many years and ruined his body. Now he all the more needs to fast and repent of ruining himself.
Let us fast unhypocritically, not to show off to people, but let us humble ourselves in spirit before our brethren if we cannot fast fully. But also not to be boast before our neighbor when we do everything. Fasting is good. But if we use this as a weapon for a psychological victory over our neighbor, if we consider ourselves superior to him, then this turns into evil. God will reject us like the arrogant Pharisee who condemned the tax collector at the very moment when God justified him.
And when we feel that we have little strength and patience, let us ask God to help us in the feat of fasting.
If, due to some weakness, we happen to break our fast and eat non-fasting food, then we should not lose heart and leave the fast altogether. If a person slips on the way, he does not lie down, but gets up and moves on. And he does this no matter how many times he falls.
Abba Moses said:
What is the strength of those who want to acquire virtue? The fact is that even if they fall, they do not lose heart, but take up the work again.
Let us also make every effort to practice virtues! “Let us patiently wait for the Lord” (compare Ps. 26:14), let us show Him our sincere will, let us ask Him for help! And He will certainly show His mercy to us and give us His grace in abundance.
Priest Ioann Sevastyanov:
The Rules of Lent must be observed to the maximum of one’s physical and spiritual strength. The written Typikon gives us some guidelines. But we understand that for an experienced Christian this may be easier, while for a beginner it may be unbearable to follow such recommendations. For the first week, it’s really better not to eat for the first four days. And not to drink water.
I know that it is possible for some older people. But for some young Christians, not at all. This requires an internal understanding of your maximum and your inner disposition. Dry eating is understood in different ways. Some believe that this means eating without a first course, and some that it is generally uncooked cold food (even without tea). Therefore, it will not be a sin if you understand dry foor as eating without a liquid first course.
When talking about fasting, usually certain prohibitions in food are mentioned. However, what can be said about spiritual pastime? Is it acceptable during fasting to listen to music, to read books, to watch movies, and so on?
Priest Ioann Kurbatsky:
Lent is the time of repentance. Saint Basil the Great in his first word about fasting says this:
“However, do not limit the benefits of fasting to abstaining from foods; because true fasting is avoiding evil deeds. Unbind all binds of unrighteousness. Forgive insult from your neighbour; forgive him his debts. Do not fast in judgments and conflicts. You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine; but you do not stop yourself from offending. You wait until evening to taste food; but you spend the day in the courts.”
Fasting should not pass without a result, i.e. we must not only go through this time, but bear fruit, worthy of repentance, sail across this sea, like a merchant’s ship full of goods, not empty.
The purpose for which fasting is given is that we can draw closer to God through prayers, reading the lives of saints and their works, abstaining from all evil, from spectacles, from idle talk and idleness. We yearn for that joy, that purity we once had, but lost and wasted, like the prodigal son, through various sins: knavery, greed, hatred, gloating, fornication, envy… “Let us sweat again with the tears to receive what we have destroyed.” (canon of the Cheese week).
Fasting is a weapon of spiritual struggle. It is the way home to our God and Father.
You mentioned music and films. It is better to abstain from these, keeping in mind the purpose for which we fast. The words of the Apostle Paul: “all things are permissible for me, but not all things are profitable; “Everything is permissible for me, but nothing should possess me” (1 Cor. 6:12), are especially applicable to the period of fasting.
For example, venerable Gerasim, the one on the Jordan, did not eat anything during the Great Lent, only on Sundays he took communion with the brethren in church. He spent the entire week in solitary prayer to God. Let us imitate such saints, at least a little. They did not see any people, and we should get behind watching television and the Internet, social media, forums, and so on. Let our mind and our attention also fast, let our soul be sobered from continuous vain, and often sinful, impressions. We are surrounded by constant noise (informational, musical, and so on) at work, in transport, everywhere. Sometimes you look at modern man with pain: he is constantly surrounded by noise, bustle, and so-called music. Even when he comes to nature, he cannot be in silence, alone with
nature. Music thunders, choking the work of the soul, reflection, and quiet contemplation of the beauty of God’s world. Silence teaches us to speak responsibly, to be able to listen and hear others. This is what Abba Isaiah writes: “Do not be careless in any work. Because labour, suffering, and silence give birth to humility.”
Today, many people’s work is connected in one way or another to the Internet. Entertainment (not to mention games) should be avoided. But spiritually beneficial materials – the teachings of the holy fathers, sermons, ascetic, historical and apologetic materials, information about the life of the Church – are not at all forbidden to study at this time. But in any case, we must remember that there is nothing preferable to prayer.
Let us take upon ourselves at least a small but constant feat: additional prayers, obligatory reading of the Holy Scripture and Holy Fathers (to determine what and how much), almsgiving (remembering the words of the Savior: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13)). We do this all to obtain spiritual fruit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
It would be good to determine your passion, which attacks the person most of all. And to begin to resist it, for example, anger, lustful thoughts, vainglory. And also just work, take care of raising children and other family responsibilities. Then there will be no time for wasting time.
So, in these coming days, let’s go deeper into ourselves and focus on spiritual work. We must, as it were, snatch these days out of the ordinary course of life and give a tithe of time to God.
Priest Ioann Sevastyanov:
I really like the story of our priests who visited our Christians in Uganda. In this poorest country, Christians fast like this: during fast they eat tomatoes without salt, and on Easter they break fast with tomatoes with salt. This is a wonderful illustration of the correct understanding of fasting. It seems to me that the main principle of fasting is abstaining from what you are used to. Therefore, each person looks into his own heart and answers the question: what is a problem for me in my attachment. And he abstains from this during fasting. Conscience is the best controller. Conscience will tell us exactly what we should avoid
during fasting. Because for one person something can be completely harmless, but for others it will be a stumbling block. For example, books, newspapers, Internet… Therefore, let us fast a pleasant fast, brothers!
