Fasting from Fasting
One of the interesting features of the Byzantine calendar is its use of both fast and fast free days for spiritual pedagogy. The benefits of fasting are more often discussed than those given to fast-free days, and, among the fasts, Great Lent and the St. Philip’s Fast are mentioned more often than others because they prepare us for two of the greatest liturgical feasts, Pascha and the Nativity respectively. But these are not the only fasting periods that Byzantines have; it would be wrong to omit the importance of the Apostle’s Fast, since it prepares for the Feast of St’s Peter and Paul, and it would also be a fault if one failed to mention the Dormition Fast, because it prepares the faithful for the celebration of the Theotokos’ entrance into heaven. Traditionally, there are also one-day fasts, such as for the Beheading of St John the Baptist (which has its own unique regulations, such as one is not to eat anything spherical in shape, so as not to symbolically join in with the destruction of the Baptist).
But, as has been said, there are also times when fasting is prohibited. Why, exactly, is this so? If fasting is good for the soul, wouldn’t it be good to encourage it all year round, if someone feels capable of doing it? Pascha, Pentecost and Christmas all receive their fast-free weeks because the intense joy associated with them would be lost if one turned their attention to acts of penance. The joy of the resurrection and the incarnation trumps all sorrow; indeed, the famous homily of St John Chrysostom for Easter calls for all, sinner and saint alike, to share in with the festivities and to leave all earthly cares and worries behind:
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
But there is another week in the year when there is to be no fasting: the week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. This time, there is a different lesson being given than at other fast-free times. It reminds us not to be like the Pharisee, to take pride in our fasting and works, and to use them as things about which we would boast. Fasting is an important discipline, but that is what it is – a discipline, training the soul to overcome the unbalanced desires of the body, showing us that we do not need to live our lives following fleeting passions. But fasting itself can become a desire as well, and become an end in itself; and so we must fast from fasting, to learn moderation, and to remember what fasting is and is not meant to be. Training ourselves for Christian livelihood must not end up making us joyless servants of the flesh – and if all our focus is on fasting, then the point of fasting itself will be lost: we will once again have become a slave to our desires, not by giving in to them, but by making our lives revolve around them and their refutation. We would still be stuck on ourselves. And so, as with the Pharisee of old, there would be no room for grace, because for us to receive grace, we need God, and not ourselves, to be the center of our lives.
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