Dear friend, I pray that your may enjoy good health and all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. (3 John 3)
1- The Miraculous Role of Fasting:
"Fasting is accepted and recognised as being the oldest form of therapy… It is the universal therapy even used by sick animals in the wilds the world over. As we study the ancient healers of the world, we find that fasting heads the list for helping Mother Nature heal the sick and the wounded. There is a misconception about fasting that must be clarified. It must be definitely and positively stated that fasting is not a cure for any disease or ailment. The purpose of a fast is to allow the body’s Vital Force full range of scope to fulfil its own self-healing, self-repairing and self-rejuvenating functions to the best advantage. Healing is an internal biological function. Fasting gives the body a physiological rest and permits the body to become 100% efficient in healing itself. Fasting under proper care or with workable knowledge is probably the fastest way and the safest means of regaining health ever conceived by the human mind.
Even if I have to repeat myself, I want to make it clear and positive that fasting does not cure anything. Fasting puts the body in a condition where all the Vital Force of the body is used to flush out the causes of body miseries. Fasting helps the body to help itself. We who have made a life of the Science of fasting and conducted and supervised thousands of fasts know the miracles that the body itself can perform during the period of complete abstinence from food. It gives the overworked and the overburdened internal organs ample rest and time for rehabilitation. It enhances the internal power and vitality of the body to flush out toxic poisons and wastes that have been stored in the body for years. It raises Vital Force to its highest point of efficiency. Thus, it promotes the elimination of inorganic chemical accumulations, toxins and other pollutions that cannot be flushed from the body by any other means… No process or health therapy ever fulfilled so many indications for restoration of vigorous health as does fasting. It is Mother Earth and God’s very own prime process and their first requirement in nearly all cases… After the fast the mind becomes so powerful that it can take full control of the body. It becomes the complete master and, if a person does not go back to his old habits, he can maintain this mastery of the body for the rest of his life. Fasting instils personal confidence. Fasting promotes tranquillity of mind and a glow of well-being that no other therapy can offer. Fasting renovates, revives and purifies every one of the millions of cells that make up the body. Fasting is the
Another main reason of fasting is the cleansing our body from different kinds of toxins. A fast can help you with greater speed; cleanse your liver, kidneys and colon; purify your blood; help you lose excess weight and water; flash out toxins; clear the eyes and tongue, and cleanse the breath.
Health is a moral and religious duty, for we are not allowed to abuse the nature of our body which is created by God. “Old age is not a time of life. It is a condition of the body. It is not time that ages the body, it is abuse that does.” (Herbert Shelton).
“We must restore fasting to the place it occupied in an ancient hierarchy of values ‘above medicine’. We must rediscover it and restore it to honour because it is a necessity. A beneficial fast of several weeks, as practised in the earliest days of the Church, was to give strength, life and health to the body and soul of all Christians who had the faith and courage to practice fasting.” (Fast Credo of the famous Buchinger Clinics in
2- How to Fast:
Most nutritionists suggest to take once a week a complete water fast, lasting from 24 to 36 hours. If you have the intestinal strength for complete water fast for 3 to 7 days every three months, most troubles from cleansing foods disagreeing with you will be over. But you should bear in mind that a complete fast is nothing allowed in the stomach except water. However, short weekly fasts of 24-36 hours can be more beneficial to your person than long fasts of 3-7 days. Ant it is also well known that the more often you fast, the longer you will be able to fast. Periodic fasting keeps you connected to your body’s natural tendency to cleanse and to rejuvenate. When you live as God and Mother Nature intended you to live, you start to rejuvenate yourself.
“It is s plain that when you stop eating to give your body’s Vital Force to clean house… you will miss the food habit the first few days of your fast. It could be uncomfortable if you allow it. Think positive! When you fast, the vital force loosens the waste in your body and gathers it up to be discarded. As long as this goes on you might feel some discomfort. But once the waste is discarded through the kidneys, you will begin to feel better. As you fast conditions will change from day to day. When your body is eliminating heavy amounts of toxic poisons through the kidneys and other organs of elimination, you could feel some discomfort. But it should also be clear why you may feel better on the 7th day of a day fast than you did on the 3rd day. Many of the toxic poisons that gave you trouble have been flushed out of the body. Many people who fast will feel better and stronger on the 10th day of the fast than they did on the 1st day… The cleaner you are inside, the more Vital Power you have… Fasting helps the internal arteries of our heart to keep them clean and free from substances that prevent the free flow of blood into the heart and throughout the entire arterial system… we can add years to our hearts with a systematic program of fasting, coupled with a natural lifestyle of foods... Remember, organic live foods make live people. You are what you eat, drink, breathe, think, say and do. So eat a low-fat, low sugar, low-salt, high-fiber diet of natural whole grains, sprouts, fresh salads, organic greens, vegetables fruits, raw seeds and nuts, fresh juices and chemical-free, and pure water. Earn your food with daily exercise, for regular exercise improves your health, stamina, go-power, flexibility and endurance, and helps the cardiovascular system. Only 45 minutes a day can do miracles for your heart, mind, soul and body.” (Dr. Paul C. Bragg, The Miracle of Fasting. Proven throughout History for Physical, Mental & Spiritual Rejuvenation,
“Deprivation of food at first brings a sensation of hunger, occasionally some nervous stimulation, but also determines certain hidden miracle phenomena which are more important. The sugar of the liver and the fat of the sub-cutaneous deposits are mobilized, and used in order to maintain the blood, heart and brain in a normal condition. Fasting purifies our entire body and profoundly cleanses and modifies our tissues.” (Dr. Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize winner, author of Man, the Unknown).
Our regular practice of fasting requires a strong belief in three major physicians: Mother Nature, time and patience. (Irish Proverb).
3- Bad and Good Food:
“The toxic poisons generated by overeating or too much of the wrong foods, can damage on of the body’s most important organs, the liver. Few people realize how important their liver is to life. It is a great chemical laboratory with many functions. It not only gives forth bile, but it is the body’s greatest garbage disposal. The liver and intestines are partners in the whole digestive process! If one is sick, the other tries to come to its aid until it too, breaks down. When the liver and the digestive systems break down you are in serious trouble! This is why you often find a swollen sensitive liver, a pasty complexion and many times, jaundice and chronic fatigue in conjunction with ongoing constipation. (Dr. Paul C. Bragg, The Miracle of Fasting. Proven throughout History for Physical, Mental & Spiritual Rejuvenation,
We must keep away from junk food and avoid as much as possible salt and sugar. Moreover, “living under conditions of modern life, it is important to bear in mind that the preparation and refinement of food products either entirely eliminates or in part destroys the vital elements in the original material.” (United States Department of Agriculture).
East as much as you can healthy natural food and drink about two litres a day of natural water. It is strange that some men will drink and eat anything put before them, but check very carefully the oil put in their car. Healthy, natural foods have a wonderful abundance of potential life energy. When you live a healthy natural lifestyle you can help activate your own powerful internal defence arsenal and maintain it at top efficiency. Remember that bad, unhealthy eating habits make it harder for your body to fight illness and stay healthy. Develop healthy self-esteem to generate positive lifestyle habits that will promote more serenity, peace and love in your life.
Natural supplements are good insurance to insure that you are getting enough minerals, vitamins and nutrients to maintain your health. “let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food.” (Hippocrates).
4- The Therapy of Natural Water:
Although the benefits of water are mentioned above, we would like to explain more the importance of natural water in our daily diet.
“Water makes up about 70% of your body, so you need a continuous replacement to keep your water level normal and healthy. Optimum is 8 to 10 glasses daily… 400 years before the birth of Christ, on the
5- The Warnings of our Body and the Need to Fast from Bad Habits:
Colds call for an earlier start to your fast to help cleanse out the mucus toxins. Colds indicate your body needs detoxifying and a good cleansing. A cold is Mother nature forcing you to fast. Fasting clears away the thousand little things which quickly accumulate and clutter the body, mind and heart. It cuts through corrosion and renews our contact with God and Mother Earth. Fasting provides the magic formula for retaining youthfulness, internal cleansing, purification, staying healthy, natural beauty and a streamlined body.
Many philosophers, scientists, physicians and spiritual leaders have used fasting for centuries as a method of cleansing, healing and renewing of our human person. Fasts are vitally important for they give the body a break from the digestive process, and allow it to release any stored toxins and to get them out.
“Cattle know when to go home from grazing, but a foolish man never knows his stomach’s measures.” (Scandinavian Proverb). Don’t injure your system by over-feeding it. Over-eating will kill you long before your time. Remember always, you are punished by your bad habits of living, not for them, but by them. “In nature there are neither rewards or punishments, there are consequences.” (Robert Ingersoll). “No man can violate Nature’s Law’s and escape her penalties!.” (Julian Johnson). “The law, ‘whatsoever a man sows that he shall also reap’, is inscribed in flaming letters upon the portal of Eternity, and none can deny it, none can cheat it, none can escape it.” (James Allen). You can do more for your own health and well-being than any doctor, any hospital, any drug and any exotic medical device. “Nutrition directly affects growth, development, reproduction, well-being and an individual’s physical and mental condition. Health depends upon nutrition more than on any other single factor.” (Dr. Wm. H. Sebrell). Ponce de Leon searched for the fountain of youth. If he had only known it is within us… created by the food we eat! Food can make or break your health.
Medicine in only palliative. For behind disease lies the cause, and this cause non drug can reach. (Dr. Weir Mitchell). “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” (Thomas A. Edison). The treatment of diseases should go to the root cause, and most often it is found in severe dehydration from the lack of sufficient pure water, plus an unhealthy diet lifestyle. “Every man is the builder of a temple called his body… We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness to imbrute them.” (Henry David Thoreau). The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself.
1- Different Ways of Fasting to Heal our Soul from Sin:
“Pure fasting is precious before God, and it is kept as a treasure in heaven. It is a weapon against the Evil One and a buckler against arrows of the Evil One. What I am saying is not from me but from the Holy Scriptures, which from the beginning showed us that fasting was always useful for those who fasted in truth. In fact, my beloved, fasting is not here only from bread and water, but its observance are many:
There is certainly the one who fasts from bread and water until he becomes hungry and thirsty. There is the one who fasts to become a virgin, and he is hungry and he does not eat, and he is thirsty and he does not drink, and this fasting is even better. There is the one who fasts in holiness (abstinence from sexual marital intercourse) and this is a fasting. There is the one who fasts from meat and wine and from certain kinds of food. There is the one who fasts by making a fence around his mouth, so that he does not pronounce any hateful words. There is the one who fasts from anger and he curbs his inclination, lest he be defeated by it. There is the one who fasts from possession, in order to empty himself for his service of God. There is the one who fasts from all kinds of sexual relations, in order to remain vigilant in prayer. There is the one who in suffering fasts from the affairs of this world, so that he will not be struck by the Evil One. There is the one who fasts to be mourning, in order to please his Lord in his suffering. There is the one who gathers all these observances to make them one fasting.” (Aphrahat the Persian Sage, Demonstarion 3).
Fasting according to Aphrahat is mainly fasting from sin and evil deeds, in order to obtain the purity of heart. (Aphrahat the Persian Sage (4th century Syriac Father), Demonstarion 3). The same idea to be found in the Book of the Didascalia, which says that fasting is capable of healing incurable sins. (See Didascalia, (Syriac Book from the 3rd century), X, 121).
“But the main reason for Lent is repentance over our sins...
2- The Practice of Fasting in the Eastern and Byzantine Traditions:
“Fasting was practiced either in common, before major feasts of the Church, or individually, under the discretion of a spiritual elder. In early Christianity, fasting meant total abstinence from food and drink at least until evening. Later the notion of fasting was extended to include reduction in the quantity of, or abstinence from only certain kinds of, victuals.
“On the symbolic or liturgical level, Christian fasting was related to expectation of the Parousia (the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgement), and thus partook of the nature of a vigil; first seen in this way in Asia Minor in the 2nd century in conjunction with the vigil on the eve of Easter, this fast was later extended to the two days, then to the entire week, preceding Easter (whence Holy Week), finally to 40 days (whence Lent), to which was prefixed later, in the 6th-7th centuries, a pre-Lenten ‘Cheesefare Week.’ Other lents of the Church year, and fasting on the vigils of Nativity and Epiphany, and on two feasts – the exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September) and the Beheading of John the Baptist (29 August) – were also added. The Byzantine system of fasts was completely in place by the 11th Century.
“The daily Eucharistic fast from midnight until Holy Communion, in general use from the 5th century onward, is also to be understood as a vigil for the coming of the Lord, This symbolism is the basis for forbidding fasting on Saturdays and Sundays and during the 50-day season of Pentecost, since these times signified the presence of the Risen Lord, the fulfilment of the Messianic age, symbolised in the Bible by banqueting.
“From the 4th century onward, tradition distinguishes various degrees of fasting, from the total Easter fast of one or more days, to giving up meat, or cheese. ‘dry nourishment’ was a fast that lasted until evening, followed by a meal of only bread, salt and water. Even the Eucharist was thought to break this fast; hence Byzantine fast days were ‘aliturgical’, that is, on these days the Eucharist, being a morning service, was either not celebrated at all, or was replaced by the Presanctified liturgy. In addition to Lents, Monday (in monasteries), Wednesday, and Fridays were traditional fast days except during the 50 days of Pentecost. Fasting included abstinence from marital relations. Monks practiced more severe and frequent fasting than the laity and never ate meat.” (The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, “Fasting”, Oxford, 1991, page 779).
3- The Great and Holy Lent of the Church
“A period, ideally 40 days in duration, of penance and fasting in preparation for Easter. This period is called ‘Great Lent’ to distinguish it from the three lesser Byzantine lents, those preceding the Nativity of Christ, the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, and the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul on 29 June (the last Lent extends from the Monday following the Sunday after Pentecost until the vigil of the Apostles’ feast).
“The first sure evidence of Lent occurs in Festal Letter II of Athanasios of Alexandria, from 330. By the end of the 4th century a prepaschal Lent was in practice almost everywhere, an outgrowth of the preparation for baptism at Easter. Lent later became also a prominent preparation fro the reconciliation of penitents during Holy Week. But growth was not uniform, as evidence from
“The duration of Lent and the ways of calculating it have also varied. Originally the whole period lasted six weeks. Where Saturdays and Sundays were not fast days (except for Holy Saturday), this amounted to 36 days of fasting in Lent plus Holy Week; thus these days were called ‘the tithe of the year’. Soon literalism and the desire to have 40 actual fast days led in the 6th – 7th centuries in Constantinople to the addition of another, pre-Lenten tyrine, or ‘Cheesefare Week’ of fasting that, with the six weeks of Lent plus Holy Week, makes a total of eight weeks, each with five fast days, 40 in all.” (The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, “Lent”, Oxford, 1991, pages 1205-1206).
4- No Fasting on Saturdays and Sundays:
“Sunday was the day symbolic of the New Age, the day on which the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, sign of continued presence of the Risen One until he comes again. It was also called ‘the eighth day,’ meaning that as the new day, symbol of the arrival of the final age, it was outside the normal Jewish cycle of time, conceived in multiples of seven. Originally Eucharist was celebrated only on Sunday, and because it was a day of joy, kneeling and fasting were prohibited. In the 3rd century Christians began to celebrate Eucharist on Saturday too and to prohibit fasting and kneeling on Saturday as on Sunday. In the West, however, Saturday was a fast day, and this became a source of dispute between
“The strict fast, allowing one meal a day, was observed on every day of Lent except Saturdays and Sundays. St. John Chrysostom explains why in his Eleventh Homily on Genesis: ‘As there are resting places and inns along public highways where the weary travellers can refresh themselves and rest from their effort and so to be able to resume their journey cheerfully; and as along the seas there are shores of havens where sailors may seek refuge in a storm and restore their strength after the violent assault of the wind, so also the Lord has appointed these two days of the week (Saturday and Sunday) a resting places and inns and shores and havens, procuring rest to those who follow the course of fasting during this holy time, and they may refresh their bodies a little from the labour of fasting and recreate their minds. After these two days are past, they may take up again cheerfully the journey they have begun.” (Bishop Joseph Raya, Byzantine Daily Worship, Alleluia Press, 1969, page 788).
5- Lent in Modern Time in the
“In the
In modern practice, fast consists in complete abstinence from food or liquid from midnight to noon, from Monday through Friday. No meat is eaten, except on Saturdays and Sundays.” (Bishop Joseph Raya, Byzantine Daily Worship, Alleluia Press, 1969, page 789).
Your Melkite parish in
6- Fasting every Week and Money to the Poor
Our Melkite parish is committed to a weekly fasting day, to help you to keep a healthy body, mind and soul. And the money you save on that day of fasting on your food and drink will be given to the poor who have no food.
The fasting consists in complete abstinence from food, liquid and smoking, except water, and from midnight to 6pm. We would suggest your fasting to be on Friday or on Wednesday.