Our Faith : Fasting
5th Sunday of Great Lent
Memory of St Mary of Egypt
We Christians serve. We serve Christ. We serve each other. We serve strangers.We serve the needy. We serve whomever the Lord gives us to serve because we love Jesus Christ. His love propels us into serving in our daily life. It is the second nature of the Christian, you could say, to serve, to try to be of service.

Mar 21, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Mary of Egypt, Facebook, and Dreams
Belief no longer bonds people together, so friendship and community can acceptably be maintained on the most peripheral levels of social contact. Friendship and community are defined by the amount of information exchanged, not by bonds of emotion, commitment, or experience. And God? He’s just out of the picture until He learns to text.

Mar 20, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Reflections on the Fourth and the Fifth Sundays of Great Lent
An important part of understanding our spiritual lives as an ascent, is the possibility of falling down a few rungs, or even completely off the ladder, which is the reality that we constantly face. In fact, the classic icon of St. John and his ladder clearly depicts the successful ascent of those truly holy and spiritually advanced monks, versus those who have succumb to various passions, causing them to fall into the pit of hell.
Mar 14, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
The Veneration of the Holy Cross
You for example, you chose to come to this church you could save someone else's soul. I call that a sacrifice. I am hoping that you are concerned about preserving the Orthodox faith. The faith that we hold so dearly. I am also hoping that your major concern, coming in the Church, is to save people who are lost, give food to the hungry, give cloth to the naked, visit the sick. You sacrifice yourselves trying to make this world a better place to live. You choose to fight evil. And you know this fight will not be easy, but you do it anyway.


Mar 7, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Why Spin the Pedals?
But the years went by, and the neophyte ardor cooled down imperceptibly. I learnt much about fasting, read intelligent, profound books, was no longer afraid of labels with egg powder, and my mother no longer referred to fasting as “starvation” -- but something had changed. I had gotten used to fasting.
Mar 6, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Why do we keep the Great Fast?
Everything we do in the Church (and by ‘in the Church’, I don’t just mean the building but in communion with one another) is predicated on the goal of our salvation and what we understand by that. The keeping of the Great Fast is no different: it’s part of our journey, not an end in itself but a means towards our common goal.
Mar 5, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
What's the Point?
What exactly are we trying to accomplish during Great Lent? Is it simply to attend services and change our diet? Or are these a means to an end? If so, what is that end? 'Orthodoxy and the World' has posed these questions to several priests.
Mar 4, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
St. Gregory & Deification (Theosis)
Time and time again, over the centuries, it is to the writings of St. Gregory that the Church has turned in order to correctly understand how monastics and married, monasteries and parishes, are all called to the same goal of union with God, albeit by spiritual paths that vary in their specific experience by each person.
Feb 28, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
How Holy Week Called Teen to Ministry
Despite the fact that services were in English and most members of my parish were converts, the culture shock of becoming Orthodox involved more than a new name and calendar. The factor that most caused this shock is also the factor I most loved about Orthodoxy, and love still: its ancientness.


Feb 27, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Great Lent - On Money
During this Lenten season it is common to talk about spiritual matters: how to fast, what to eat and what not to eat, how to pray, how many prostration to make... And this is fine and should really be of genuine concern for all of us.However, today I would like to bring to your attention a matter which is less popular and which is very rarely seen and understood as the spiritual problem it is. Money. Money as a commodity we use as a donation in church on Sunday mornings.


Feb 22, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Getting Our Robes Dirty
We are called to get our robes dirty, not only by the themes of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, but by the Lenten season itself. There are three traditional aspects of Lenten practice, three pillars of Lenten spirituality: fasting, prayer, and works of mercy. We often talk a great deal about fasting during Lent, and some about prayer as well. But we often don’t talk very much about the third category: acts of mercy.
Feb 21, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
How to Win the Virtues
The season of Great Lent for us as Orthodox Christians is for one thing only, the “winning” of the virtues. These are the 40 days given to us, (the “tithe” of the year according to Dorotheus of Gaza,) in which we acquire the virtues that come through the grace of the Holy Spirit.


Feb 20, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Rules of Fasting: How to Read Labels
Back in the day, there were no canned foods, chemically cloned flavors, hermetically sealed wrappers, governmentally required labelling, the FDA, Food Police and trace ingredients that bind, harden, smooth and flavor our food. If you got a fish or a loaf of bread or something made of corn, it pretty much was a fish, bread or made of corn. Technology has made fasting a science and the playground of Phariseeism and obsessive compulsive attention to details.
Feb 19, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
What Should I Do During Great Lent?
Most of us realize that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the three basic Christian and lenten necessities, but we often realize as well that we cannot keep the strictest lenten regulations of the Church which are, in fact, monastic rules. We know that we will not make a maximum effort and so we sometimes feel frustrated, lost, and without guidance.
Feb 18, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Lent is the Time to Change Yourselves
Here is another fasting related story. An acquaintance of mine was having some very serious problems and she frequently travelled to see a spiritual person to seek advice. Once she said to him, ‘I have voluntarily undertaken the obedience of reading two kathismas every day. Do you think I have chosen wisely?’


Feb 17, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Repent, For the Kingdom of Heaven Is Near. The Beginning of Great Lent.
Penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete

Life has been given to each of us to come to God and see Him face to face, but we have not seen Him. And who knows how many Lents we still have in store ahead of us, how many opportunities to repent. For some of the people standing here now this Great Lent can be the last chance to reconsider their lives and turn to God.

Feb 15, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Journey Into Orthodox Christian Lent
I had to apologize to someone Sunday night. In fact, I had to apologize to about a hundred people--one at a time, face to face. It was great. For Orthodox Christians, Lent begins differently than it does for Protestants and Catholics.
Feb 15, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Forgiveness Sunday
Tomorrow we enter the holy days of Great Lent, and the Church calls us to ask forgiveness of one another with repentance and humility in our hearts. We will enter a holy place and time. In the time of the Law, God’s people travelled every year to the Holy City of Jerusalem and entered the Temple to offer a cleansing sacrifice. In the weeks leading up to Great Lent, we hear wondrous words chanted in church: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” (Ps. 137). It is now time for us to remember the Heavenly Jerusalem, our Fatherland.
Feb 14, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Forgiveness Sunday
When we come to one another and say, 'Forgive me' it will not mean, if you answer 'Yes I do' that nothing that was wrong between us is annihilated, exists no more. But it means 'I accept you as you are, sinful, a wound in my flesh, a wound in my heart, a problem in my life — but I accept you and I will carry this acceptance, and you, throughout life, and pray for God's blessing to be on you and pray for God to heal both of us, that I should become such that I do not lead you into temptation, be the cause of your own fall.

Feb 13, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Sunday of the Last Judgment
If Christ is really the Son of God, then death, judgment, Paradise, and hell are real as well. If we accept these realities, our acceptance is the first act of faith. Faith is the first step on the path to salvation, and fear of God is the second step.


Feb 7, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Lost and Found
There is a story told about another "prodigal" who left his home and led a dissolute life, which was a disgrace to his parents. He too decided to go home, but he was uncertain what the response would be. So he wrote to his parents to tell them what he was intending to do. And he asked them to put a small white handkerchief in the top left corner of a window as a sign that he would be accepted back.


Jan 31, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
A Time to Feast and a Time to Fast
This year, because Great Lent begins so early, we feel that cycle perhaps more intensely than at other times. Having just finished the great twin feasts of our Lord’s Nativity and Baptism (Christmas and Theophany) we enter almost immediately it seems on the preparation for Great Lent. And so we swing from one of the greatest festal seasons of the year, directly into the greatest fasting season of the year. A time to feast, a time to fast.

Jan 25, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Preparing for Great Lent
We usually think of this preparatory time as the period of Great Lent, but in fact it begins three weeks earlier with the Sundays of the Publican and Pharisee, the Prodigal Son and the Last Judgment. Since we are not fasting yet, we tend to pay less attention to these preparatory Sundays than we do to the Sundays of Great Lent, and yet they are very important, as they give us a map, as it were, of our lenten journey.


Jan 24, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee
In our mentality we tend to oppose glory and humility because we have identified humility with deficiency or weakness. Our ignorance, our incompetence, ought to make us feel humble. It seems almost impossible to "put across" to modern man, fed on publicity, self - affirmation and endless self - praise, that all which is genuinely perfect, beautiful and good, is at the same time naturally humble. Precisely because it is perfect and good, it does not need "publicity" and external glory of any kind.


Jan 24, 2010, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Justice as Asceticism
Fasting is meant to lead to something more. The question is, what more does this lead to? Fasting saves money, and makes us conscious of the ¾ (no longer 2/3) world which is malnourished; fasting reminds us of our dependence on God; fasting gives time for prayer. We do one thing, which leads to another. Hopefully. I say hopefully, because often fasting may lead us nowhere.

Dec 10, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Questions and Answers About the Nativity Fast
Fasting is not difficult if we live in an Orthodox family. In fact the external act of fasting from animal products is not difficult, for this is part of our daily liturgical life. On a spiritual level it is more challenging, especially with the demands that are made on us at this time of the year. I am referring to our ‘obligation’ to join in office parties or socialize with non-Orthodox friends. For those of us whose immediate family is not Orthodox, this poses a challenge on the physical level as well.


Dec 9, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
On the Beginning of the Nativity Fast
This year, the beginning of our Nativity Fast came on the day after Thanksgiving. I know that for some, the main dish was not a turkey or a pumpkin pie, but other people, whom they tore apart and devoured by gossip, judging, evil talk, and back-stabbing. What good is their fast if they continue to feast on humans? What good is their abstinence from meat if their tongue flings about like a butcher’s cleaver?


Nov 30, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Some Thoughts On Fasting
Sadly, before major celebrations we tend to spend inordinate amounts of time planning menus, testing new recipes, and the like, all with the hope that our celebration will be memorable, enjoyable, and tasty. In the process, the very thing we gather to celebrate is often obscured, misplaced, and lost. This is especially so in the days—or, to be more specific, the months—leading to the celebration of Christmas, during which we are tempted to focus our preparations on foods, decorations, gifts, and the like, rather than on the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, which is at the very heart of our faith as Christians.

Nov 27, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Thoughts upon Fast
But if we see the fast as an element of life, then it comes out clear that by rejecting life, naturally, we get death. We cannot think by this pattern – “you made a mess now be punished”. That is why Isaac the Syrian uses “warning” and not “menace” or “punishment”. In this case, abstinence, as a physical law, is inherent to a human, to all humans, whether they are believers or not, whether they are righteous or sinners etc. If one were to put his finger in the electric socket and be shocked, of course it is possible for this to be regarded as punishment for a certain deed, but it is also possible for this to be considered a natural consequence.

Jun 29, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
The Forgotten Feast
It is a tragic fact that today Holy Saturday is viewed by many as an unimportant “day off” between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Pascha. This is absolutely false. That view negates the essential link between the despondency of Good Friday and the ecstasy of Pascha. Holy Saturday is that indispensable link between Christ’s death and Resurrection.
Apr 18, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Metropolitan Philaret on Holy and Great Friday
As the All-knowing God for Whom there is no future and no past but only one act of the Divine omniscience and understanding, He knew each one of us, He saw each one of us, and every one of us did He receive into His soul, with all our sins, our cold unwillingness to repent, with all our weaknesses and moral defilement. And what does He see? In order to save us, whom He loved so much and whom He received into His soul, He has to take upon Himself all our sins as if He Himself had committed them.
Apr 17, 2009, 10:03

Our Faith : Fasting
It Is Finished!
Some thoughts on Great Friday
How much can be said in just a few words! It is finished! It is done, it is accomplished…There is no doubt that these words were also spoken by the enemies of the Lord, our Saviour, when they, returning from the terrible Golgotha, frequently repeated these words with Satanic joy: It is finished! We have finally reached the goal we desired so ardently: Jesus of Nazareth, our implacable accuser, is no longer alive;

Apr 17, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
The Word that Transfigures
Word and silence are at the heart of the liturgical life, both in their power to evoke (anamnesis: sacred memory), and in their eschatological call. In the ritual we see the knitting together of memory and hope; indeed, they are knit together as the "Word out of silence" which transfigures the life of the world. Past and future coalesce in the present, in the transfigured presence.
Apr 16, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
On the Necessity of Vigilance: A Sermon For Holy Tuesday
Spiritual sleep is not like physical sleep, which strengthens the organism; to the contrary, this is an unhealthy sleep, a sick lethargy, in which people pursue vanity while thinking they are living a real life, forgetting about the soul, about God, about the future Eternal Life. In order more deeply to impress in us the feeling of danger, the necessity of wakefulness, and to awaken our conscience from spiritual drowsiness, the Lord tells the parable of the ten virgins, which we heard in today’s Gospel reading.

Apr 14, 2009, 10:01

Our Faith : Fasting
The Historical Development of Holy Week Services In the Orthodox/Byzantine Rite
Historicizing and dramatic elements have shaped our Holy Week observance into the majestic Byzantine rites which we know today. The process began in the first century and continues down to our own age. Regretfully, however, many of our people turn out for these beautiful services and are not seen the rest of the year. The services have become such that people want to observe them as they would a beautiful opera, in small doses, but they fail to connect the paschal events with their own lives.
Apr 14, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Holy Week - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: The End
So often the Holy Week is considered one of the "beautiful traditions" or "customs," a self-evident "part" of our calendar. We take it for granted and enjoy it as a cherished annual event which we have "observed" since childhood, we admire the beauty of its services, the pageantry of its rites and, last but not least, we like the fuss about the paschal table...
Apr 13, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Christ Turns Our Sorrows Into Joy
In heaven, all toil and sorrow shall vanish, loses will be restored, injustices shall be made right and sin will be no more. Every year, during Holy Week and Pascha the Church invites us to enter into this rhythm of life and death in a very intense and special way by witnessing the passion of Christ.

Apr 13, 2009, 09:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Fifth week of Great Lent: the Sacrament of Penitence
It is easy to go to confession. When we stand before the priest, there is usually a list of sins available. We can look at it and be reminded of our sins. An experienced priest will be able to help us by suggesting possible sins that we may have committed. At the end of confession the priest asks us: do we repent of our sins? Note the question, dear brethren! We are not asked: have you confessed your sins? But - do you repent of your sins?
Apr 4, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Fifth Week of Great Lent
At Matins on this day the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is read in its entirety once a year, which was read in four parts on the first four days of the first week, and the Life of St. Mary of Egypt is read after the Sessional Hymn (Kathisma). According to this feature of the Thursday Matins it is called either the St. Andrew of Crete or the St. Mary of Egypt Thursday. In the Canon are collected and stated, as was stated above, all the exhortations to fasting and repentance, and the Holy Church repeats it now in its fullness to inspire us new strength for the successful end to Lent.
Apr 2, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
St John Climacus
To sin means to turn away from One who loves us unto life and unto death; and it means by implication that His life and death are too little for us, too little for us to respond by love, to respond by faithfulness and loyalty. Indeed, this attitude results in our breaking in a multitude of ways those laws of life which are conducive to life eternal; those laws of life that would make us truly, perfectly human in the way in which Christ was perfectly human, in the total harmony between God and us.


Mar 28, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross
“Disowning the self” is a very difficult concept let alone a very difficult act. We live in a culture that focuses on the self. We live in a culture that thrives on selfishness. We have to be careful not to give the impression of being unpatriotic, but let us never forget that the engine of capitalism exists to serve the self. We are in a culture that thrives on consumption. And we are the ones who are the consumer. We take, we possess, and so often we waste.
Mar 21, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas
This is the very key to the Fast: to make the transition from outer stillness to inner stillness, from outer forms to inner realities – to experience not only a change in external lifestyle but also and more importantly an inner transformation and transfiguration of the heart.
Mar 14, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
About Great Lent (Part III)
By the way, I would greatly recommend for those who do not yet know the Church canons well enough – try coming to Church on other days during the Great Fast, apart from Sundays and Saturdays. If there are churches in your city, which are opened during the whole day – monastery churches, for instance – drop in for just half an hour. Drop in at least several times on weekdays – though it may seem difficult for you to stand the whole service, for want of habit – drop in at least for 20-30 minutes, take a breath of this wonderful atmosphere of Lent.


Mar 10, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
About Great Lent (Part II)
You know, Orthodoxy represents a giant world, which absorbs many different things. There’s an incredible mystique: Orthodoxy has no limits, no “ceiling” – I mean an obstacle for going up. Remember the Gospel's words: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”? The Orthodox Church interprets these words absolutely literally! And Orthodox theology speaks of the sacrament of a human’s perfection. They say a man can see a light from his inner world with his own eyes, he can be enlightened by God’s light.

Mar 7, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Open To Me the Doors of Repentance
Taking up our cross may mean taking up whatever life presents us with and bearing it with humility and obedience, in union with Christ, as our sharing in the one perfect offering that Christ has made. It is not that what we do has some “merit,” that we purchase God’s favor by it. It is that this our cross is the means God may use to change us, to bring about the “change of mind” that is our salvation.

Mar 6, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Life is Different During Great Lent
Believe it or not, part of the idea of fasting is to give us more time to dedicate to coming to services. If we are eating less, we should be doing less cooking and shopping, and thus have much more time at our disposal. Sadly, though, we often end up spending more time cooking complicate vegan dishes and shopping for exotic – and often expensive – ingredients. Let us make an effort to simplify, simplify, simplify. If we are spending more time in the kitchen and more money on food, then something is seriously amiss.
Mar 5, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
About Great Lent (Part I)
The Creator gave people a great gift – the gift of anger. Remember this: “God of anger and sorrow”? Thus anger or hate is a gift. It performs the same function in a man’s soul that immunity does in a man’s body. When an infection appears in my body, in my blood, certain antibodies attack and destroy it. A soul has a similar mechanism: when evil thoughts break into it, they should be kicked out by the energy of anger and hate: “I do not want to! Go away from me! I’m not letting you act!”


Mar 4, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Great Lent
Lent is a time for us to venture out of our living rooms and comfort zones, to move away from the television, to suspend the mail-order DVDs and endless, mindless video games in order to worship God, live life and serve others by giving those in need what we have in spades.

Mar 3, 2009, 10:00

Our Faith : Fasting
Great Lenten Epistle of Bishop Alexander of Buenos Aires and South America
It's useful to remember here the story of how two women came to confession to a famous ascetic elder. The first of them was burdened by one terrible sin, for which her conscience troubled her continuously, and the other had no grave sin but only the "usual," human ones.


Mar 2, 2009, 10:00