The significance of Food

abanoub2000

So i am sure this question has most likely been asked before but here we go again.

So I am taking lent very seriously this year (first time WOO!) and i started reading the bible more and praying. I started giving up distracting things in my life, xbox, facebook etc.... Giving up all these things and replacing them with things like reading the bible NS Prayer brings you closer to god, but i dont see how giving up certain foods is even sorta kinda related to god?

jydeacon

Giving up foods is simply the outward expression and motion of the fast/Great Lent. It is said, that if you can control your exterior passions(things relating to flesh, hunger, food etc) then you can control your interior passions and actions. Which will lead to better self control when it comes to sin. The whole point of fasting is to control our desires and cut off our bad habbits to sin.

Abba John the Dwarf said(also known as St. John Kame), 'If a king wanted to take possession of his enemy's city, he would begin by cutting off the water and the food and so his enemies, dying of hunger, would submit to him. It is the same with the passions of the flesh: if a man goes about fasting and hungry the enemies of his soul grow weak.'

People do tend to get carried away with the food, going to the extent of looking at every single item on the ingredients list which is admirable but way over the top. Christ himself said, "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man but what comes out that defiles a man" Fasting literally means not eating or drinking for a certain time. Which is whats done during the weekdays of great lent and why liturgies are held in the afternoon. With-holding from certain food is abstinence as a means to gain better self control as I said over our interior passions and lusts. I'll leave you with a quote by St. Basil.

"Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord. True fast is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood, and perjury. Privation of these is true fasting."
St. Basil the Great

Blessed Lent,
Please remember me and my weakness in your prayers

ilovesaintmark

Going vegan allows us to symbolically return to our original state in the Garden of Eden, like our father Adam and mother Eve.  They did not eat animal flesh.

As well as all of the other things cited.

coolboy1000g

As others have mentioned, if we cannot control our desire for food then we wont be able to control any bodily lusts. As one of the fathers said if we cannot control gluttony which is the simplest of all lusts, then how do we hope to control all the other lusts of the flesh. That is why it is very important not to eat very heavy meals during the holy lent.
Plus we all know that eating too much or eating certain kinds of food makes our body desire the lusts of the flesh even more. So limiting down on the food helps the spirit to become stronger since the temptations of the flesh are weaker. As St Paul said that the body and spirit are against each other, so in order for the spirit to get stronger it has to subdue the body. In addition, one time Pope Shenouda said that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was perfect in every way, fasted for us and for our salvation; then dont you think that we are in more need for fasting especially these days with all the temptations that surround us. We all need to fast for the sake of the church and the world; now is the time that St Anthony described "there will be a time when insanity will become sanity"

Pray for me

socoolbishoy

Abba John the Dwarf said(also known as St. John Kame),

I think you mean Saint John colobos, because saint John Kame the priest is a different saint

I know much was said... but I will add my two cents!

the body is in need of three things... one of which is food, without food you will die!

so now try not eating at all... and not only that, but when you allow your body to eat, you control what it eats by amount and kind! now you tell me, Whose the boss?!

so you practice that, after a while your body says I want to do this and that... again whose the boss?!

lets take it through the physiological approach,
when you eat just enough calories for your work... you will exert them and run out of energy for anything extra, so fasting helps control your energy, and if you use that energy in the right, you wont have extra for sin!
also, we eat more vegetables, we eat things that will make us more healthy... and it will give us the boost for the day, and only enough for the day... sounds familiar? "give us this day, our daily bread"

lol, and I have to approach it from the psychological aspect too!
the food, warmth, comfort... and sex, are all in one drive which is called the libido under the ID. so when you can control that need of food, you can control that lust that humans have... also the ID is the animal part of our personality, so if control its needs and desires through my superego (church laws, parent laws, and society laws) and balance it out with my ego (my realistic approach) I will be a healthy person, well balanced!

I don't want to get too much into the psychological approach of it... but as you can see fasting from food helps you Spiritually, psychologically, and even mentally!

neshkor Allah, akhadna el baraka!

abanoub2000

haha as soon as you said "physiological approach" i was like..... doesnt he mean psycholgy? :D

btw in my psych class we refer to the ID as the devil :D

socoolbishoy

lol...

well in technecality we cannot call it the devil... but yes when I teach it, I usually refer to the ID as the devil... but really it shows that the devil mazloom, we keep saying its the devil its the devil... but we are born with these animal characteristics, and didn't know how to control it... but remember the devil only gives thoughts... all the other things is just in our nature, we need to learn how to control, which brings us back to fasting... lol

don't get me started in psychology or I will not end lol!

akhadna el barka, neshkor Allah...