Devotional - February 24, 2010

“What is meant by this word ‘fast’? Here the utmost care is needed, so as to preserve a proper balance between the outward and the inward. On the outward level fasting involves physical abstinence from food and drink, and without such exterior abstinence a full and true fast cannot be kept; yet the rules about eating and drinking must never be treated as an end in themselves, for ascetic fasting has always an inward and unseen purpose. Man is a unity of body and soul, ‘a living creature fashioned from natures visible and invisible’, in the words of the Triodion; and our ascetic fasting should therefore involve both these natures at once. The tendency to over-emphasize external rules about food in a legalistic way, and the opposite tendency to scorn these rules as outdated and unnecessary, are both alike to be deplored as a betrayal of true Orthodoxy. In both cases the proper balance between the outward and the inward has been impaired.”

From the introduction to the The Lenten Triodion, translated by (Bishop) Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary

Dearest to Christ,

Please remember that one aspect of our Lenten purification is Holy Confession. Confessions are heard after Great Vespers on Saturdays, during Orthros on Sunday mornings, after Great Compline on Monday evenings and after Little Compline on Fridays, and also by appointment.

In Christ,
Fr Michael