Guidelines for Fasting and Abstinence
Abstinence: the food you do without, especially animal
products
Fast: the extent of time you do without food; no
restrictions on the amount
Note: The term fasting is often used to also include abstinence.
Three Kinds of Fasts:
1. Liturgical:
Philipian, Great Lent, Apostles’, Dormition
2. Eucharistic – the fast to
distinguish the Eucharist from all other foods
3. Ascetical – fasting from food to
control the passions
Notes on
Fasting:
We fast on Wednesdays because Our Lord was betrayed on a Wednesday.
We fast on Fridays, because He was crucified on a Friday.
If you are a guest and the host serves food you are abstaining from,
do not
embarrass your host by not eating the food; but conversely, don’t go looking
for such a host, either! (See the Epistle of St. James)
Nursing mothers, those who are under 16, over 65 or ill, need not fast;
but they are obliged to abstain.
If
a feast day falls during Great Lent, do not fast, but abstain.
If you can, keep the traditional fast, but don’t ruin your health.
Saturdays and Sundays, the islands in the fast, you can eat fish.
On strict fast days you can eat fish withOUT backbones, i.e. shellfish.
“Fr. Josef-isms” – Quotes from Fr. Josef’s teachings:
Fasting is not optional; it is the mark of the church.
Always pray with fasts; or you will
only get skinny and grouchy.
Minimalism destroys the spiritual
life.
Fasting is not the amount of food, but
the time and duration.
It is the wife’s job to know how to
keep the fast.
Virtue is not fasting, but controlling the passions.
Lenten
Fast = 40 days
5 days of Meat-Fare, 5 days of Cheese-Fare & 30 weekdays for 6
weeks of Lent
Holy Week is a separate and more intense fast.
Monastic
Fast:
Fasting
from midnight to noon or Vespers, but eating a sufficient amount of food
for your needs.
Minimal
Fast for Great a Holy Lent:
(See above about minimalism!)
1st day of Lent, Wednesdays
& Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday.
The Proof of Fasting
Do You Fast?
Give me proof of it by your works.
If you see a poor man, take pity on him.
If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him.
Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eves, and the ears, and the feet,
and the hands and all the
members of our bodies.
Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.
Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.
Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful...
Let the ear fast... by not listening to evil talk and gossip...
Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism. For what good is it if
we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers?
--- St. John Chrysostom