Saturday before Cheesefare; The Holy Venerable-Martyr Eudocia.
Romans 14:19-26; Galatians 5:22-6:2; Matthew 6:1-13; Matthew 11:27-30.
Read Romans 14:19-26
Just before entering the Great and Holy Fast, the Church once again reminds us that it is very possible to fast our way further from the Lord. Eating food, or fasting from it, divorced from faith and an awareness of our actions within our spiritual life and the upbuilding of our neighbour, is ambivalent at best or in some cases, even harmful.
St. Paul gives the remedy to this temptation in his epistle to us today. Fasting should be between us and God; it should be a secret discipline and not an occasion for judgement or pride. This means avoiding drawing attention to our fasting and combining our fasting with secret and faithful prayer to the Lord.
My spiritual Father taught me “the secret to prayer is secret prayer.” The same thing can be said of fasting. As we begin the fast, let us be conscious of building up our neighbour through our secret disciplines and not making our fasting an occasion of stumbling.