The Holy Priest-Martyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (155-56).
Great Fast Day 4. Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 2:11-21; Vespers – Genesis 2:4-19; Proverbs 3:1-19.
Read Genesis 2:4-19
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the prologue to The Lord of the Rings films, Galadriel says, “And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth.” When bringing Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan, God revealed through Moses what could not have been transcribed at creation and should never be forgotten again.
Today’s reading begins with, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” This phrase introduces ten sections of Genesis. All the others introduce genealogies or narratives of human descendants, so we should be alert to notice what is said to proceed from the “the heavens and the earth when they were created.”
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
Humanity is not just star dust. We do not proceed from the-heavens-and-the-earth alone. We proceed from the “breath” of God and the-heavens-and-the-earth. We are intrinsically body and spirit.
But the world is now fractured and that fracture proceeds from us. We experience division in our physical-and-spiritual self. Our physical needs and desires, left to their own devices, override and crowd out spiritual awareness and integration.
St. Paul would later teach that we cannot commend ourselves to God through things like eating or abstaining from food, but we can use the physical disciplines of the Great Fast to become more aware of and open to the grace God gives to incline ourselves to spiritual choices and become more integrated persons. Sometimes the value of the Fast lies in revealing the worst parts of ourselves when under the pressure of unfulfilled hungers. The free will indicated by the tree still exists for our nature to be perfected by grace.