Yes, we are talking about fasting. It is one of the basic aspects of our life. The below excerpt is taken from the book by Fr Lawrence Farley, One Flesh, pages 47-55. A blessed Nativity Fast to everyone! Our modern and secular culture knows little of the value of fasting as the ancients understood it. For us, any denial of our bodily desires is at best unnecessary and at worst unnatural and harmful. Abstaining from food is acceptable if part of a weight-loss program, for it has an acceptable goal in mind – namely, looking slim and sexy. But abstaining from food because it is Great and Holy Friday, with the goal in mind of pleasing the Lord, is less acceptable to our culture. It may be tolerated as part of a strange and incomprehensible religion, but it will not strike a responsive chord, because our culture does not recognize pleasing the Lord as an acceptable goal in the same way as it recognizes looking slim and sexy as an acceptable goal.
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