During Lent, you may see two people eating identical meals. One of them may be doing so out of spiritual laziness, while the other person has worked very hard to get to this point . . .
Another reason for fasting, taught in many Orthodox churches, is to eat cheaper food and give the savings to charity. The problem is that what was cheaper back in New Testament days among seafaring nations was seafood. You might already have read about how even in England there were laws to prevent cheap salmon from being fed too often to servants.
But fast forward to now, and there are no savings from eating fish or shrimp instead of beef, chicken, or pork. How times change.
Even more reason to keep Lenten discipline in line with dietary reality is the Orthodox ministry to Alaska’s Eskimos back in the day. One visiting bishop exclaimed “meat, during the fast?”--not understanding that Eskimos had no agriculture. Or vegetables. Were there missionaries to Mongolia’s countryside they’d find a people who consider salad to be animal food, or food for our food.
It would be nice to see more emphasis on how to pummel our bodies and make them our slaves (as St. Paul urged) without insisting on outdated stipulations.
Why did God tell is to fast? The simple answer is that it is god for our helth, and he wants the best for us. Fasting strengtens the imunesystem
Another reason for fasting, taught in many Orthodox churches, is to eat cheaper food and give the savings to charity. The problem is that what was cheaper back in New Testament days among seafaring nations was seafood. You might already have read about how even in England there were laws to prevent cheap salmon from being fed too often to servants.
But fast forward to now, and there are no savings from eating fish or shrimp instead of beef, chicken, or pork. How times change.
Even more reason to keep Lenten discipline in line with dietary reality is the Orthodox ministry to Alaska’s Eskimos back in the day. One visiting bishop exclaimed “meat, during the fast?”--not understanding that Eskimos had no agriculture. Or vegetables. Were there missionaries to Mongolia’s countryside they’d find a people who consider salad to be animal food, or food for our food.
It would be nice to see more emphasis on how to pummel our bodies and make them our slaves (as St. Paul urged) without insisting on outdated stipulations.