Fasting

I grew up thinking that fasting was going without any food, though maybe with a little water, for however long the fast might be. Even when I learned better, it was still a little startling to read that penances of year-long fasts were sometimes assigned.(*)

The Orthodox fasting rules are quite rigorous--even stricter than those of vegans.(**) To try to keep those would require coordination with other folks who also eat here. There's an old rule about accepting hospitality that says that if someone who doesn't know you are fasting offers you food, Jesus' rule about not letting people know about fasting holds, and you should accept. So, if you don't tell anybody, and someone fixes breakfast for you... I suspect that's a bit like lifting weights until you "think you're tired."

I get dizzy and fuzzy after too long without food--and both my travel and my job demand focus. And other dietary constraints apply.

Excuses, excuses.

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From a site on fasting for non-monastics: "Priests, of course, do not have breakfast before serving the Liturgy, and maybe that is why some of our sermons are not as good as they could be."

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(*) From the Canons of Theodore "If a man commits adultery, he is to fast 7 years, 3 days each week on bread and water" Also "If any man steals things of value, if he is a layman, he is to fast 5 years; if a subdeacon, 6 years; if a deacon, 7 years; if a masspriest, 10 years; if a bishop, 12 years." This seems to make Tetzel's wares a little more attractive. (The Canons weren't in use anymore by then, though.)

(**) Is it holiness or forgiveness that vegans seek?