40 days and 40 nights

Comments

• jmazioun

  May 2006

  hey vassilios
  well 1st of all, the reason you stated for Jesus fasting 40 days makes sense, so then i think what you are implying is if Jesus didnt want to go over 40 days which is all man can do then why do we?
  
  Its important to remember Jesus fasting 40 days means he did not eat ANYTHING at all! So when you compare that to only abstaining from breakfast like 5 days a week, and being able to eat all kinds of vegetables, pasta, fruit and so forth, i would not really compare our fast to Jesus.
  
  The 40 days we do is just a symbol or remembrance of what Jesus done, we are not doing what he actually did. The same with passion week, we do not go through what he went through, we just try to feel and remember it as much as we can.
  
  If we were going to totaly abstain from food, than 40 days probably would be the maximun since we can not do more than Jesus. But that isnt what we do, our type of watered down fasting is nothing compared to the fast Jesus fasted for us, obviously the spirituality of the fast is what matters not the food. We should be able to do 365 days pretty easily (Vegetarians that sleep in do it everyday lol)
  
  Hope that makes sense a bit
  God bless
  
• LifeinChrist

  May 2006

  [quote author=vassilios link=board=1;threadid=3828;start=0#msg54089 date=1146869957]
  Now... for those who's name starts with I and ends in qbal [WHOEVER u ALL may be, and i'm NOT mentioning any names], this is a simple honest question that requires a simple answer. Its not an attack against the Coptic Church, neither is it a subliminal message that deep deep down i'm protestant.
  
  I really don't think that was necessary, you had a question about faith, and no matter what happend before no one is attacking you no so there really should be none of that.
• jmazioun

  May 2006

  Hey Vassilios,
  I dont know exactly when or who added the 1 week preparation. But i personally think about it this way, when we start getting into a long fast, its like your spirituality increases toward the end, by controllong the flesh through fasting and allowing the spirit to grow through more and deeper prayer, you find your relationship with God becomes special at those times and grows at a rapid rate leading to the amazing time of passion week. So the first week gives you a headstart in that growth so once the holy 40 days start you already have something to build on rather than having to start getting into it from scratch.
  
  Its hard to go from eating breakfast and meat and all to abstaining untill 3pm (or whenever your health allows) and no meat or dairy, so the 1st week can start to get you into it, u can go a bit easy that week and not abstain for as long and so on.
  
  Once i skipped the preparation week, and the 1st couple of weeks were not that deep, and i thought to myself, if i started earlier i would have experienced this a week ago and i would be more mature in my fast right now.
  
  i dont know why overweight ppl effect your faith LOL. But i dont think anybody is secretley protestant, protestants fast by the way, just not the same way we do and not as often. I think our weight problem has a lot to do with 1) genetics 2) Egyptian food which put Macdonalds to shame by the amount of fat it has, even during fasting times all they do is swap samna for oil.. Yuk
• Unknown

  May 2006

  First of all, we don't fast just to replicate Jesus per se, we fast because in so replicating Jesus we enhance our own spirituality and defeat our weaknesses. Jesus fasted for an entirely different purpose.
  
  As for your priest's explanation of why Christ did not fast more than 40 days, I wouldn't take that dogmatically. I personally don't see any cogency or basis for such an interpretation.

  There are a lot of overweight people in our Church - and it confuses me when I see them and affects my faith; and acutally, there are a few priests that are overweight too; do you think that secretly perhaps they must be protestant???

  The typical diet of a fast is alot less healthier than the typical diet of a non-fast period. Carbohydrates rocket during the fast period, according to the increased intake of bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes. Furthermore, clergy do not go to the gym or take runs around the block; they have no time for that, so it is to be expected that many clergy are over weight. As someone else pointed out, genetics is also a significant factor. There are some people who only eat one meal a day, and who nonetheless continue to increase in their weight. Such people are often advised by dieticians that they have to paradoxically eat more in order to lose weight, and excercise ofcourse (which as mentioned above, is not really scheduled in clergy's timetables).
  
  In other words, the bigger the stomach, the greater the Orthodoxy ;) - don't quote me on that.
• Unknown

  May 2006

  For the origin of the preparation week, I was once told by an abouna that our early fathers used to fast the Holy Forty by fasting 8 weeks of 5 days because they would abstain from fasting on Saturdays and Sundays. However, at some point in history, the church decided that the fast should not be interrupted, so they made it 40 days straight, and then they added a week to make up for the saturdays and sundays, and that week is now known as the preparation week.
  
  
• Unknown

  May 2006

  I found a topic on coptichymns.net that talks about the origin of the preparation week.
  
  http://coptichymns.net/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-6918-highlight-lent.html