THE TRUE NATURE OF FASTING (Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)

The real fast starts at vespers next Sunday. Everyone in the parish is talking about the upcoming fast, exchanging recipes, what we will serve at the parish suppers for fast food that the Catholics will eat (the Protestants generally stay away from the suppers during Great Lent...the word got out that there's no souvlakia, moussaka, pastichio or egg based desserts!).

So, this year the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are synchronized to the same calendar! Next Sunday, the Maronite Church celebrates Cana Sunday - the first Sunday of Lent. Do you also have Ash Monday?

Ahhhh, you have a Parish Hall! We lost ours several years ago, during a waning period with no priest assigned to the parish. Abouna plans to bring this all back but first, we must complete the work on our future church. Once that is done and the Church is dedicated, the current 'church' will become the Parish Hall. He is quite the visionary and strategized plans on how to use it to raise much needed funds for the parish. May Bishop Mansour keep him assigned here for many years to come!

Our annual Hafli has been held at St. Sophia's GOC Hall, for several years. We truck in our serving dishes but use their kitchen to prepare for the event. It's a lot of work to haul, unbox, rinse and set up all these dishes for the event, only to turn around and do it again during the wee hours of the following morning. We are all looking forward to that day when we will once again have a Hall where we can share meals.

Today people were giving out urls for Lenten recipe sites on the web!

Oh please post some of these for all of us to share :-0!

"So, this year the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are synchronized to the same calendar! Next Sunday, the Maronite Church celebrates Cana Sunday - the first Sunday of Lent. Do you also have Ash Monday?"

This year, as it is every five years, I believe, both the East and the West celebrate Pascha on the same Sunday. I am quite sure the Melkites have changed over to the Orthodox method of determining Pascha at least in Lebanon and I thought I read that the Maronites had also. We do not have any devotion like Ash Monday or Wednesday.

As for the recipes, I'll randomly post them as She Who Must Be Obeyed asks me to find them for her! :)

Repetitive sin is a sort of pride on the one hand and selfishness on the other. In both instances it comes from focusing on our own desires and pleasures rather than on Christ.

I'm sure that's quite correct. My point however is that an intellectual assessment of the nature and problem of sin is one thing and the approach of fasting and prayer to break those sinful patterns is another. It should be obvious but I think I saw that as an exercise in piety rather than God's very own practical how to. It was a late discovery for me.

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