Time before Christmas for fasting and introspection

MICHELE MARR

Each year, just about the time our unseasonably hot fall weather

collides with mall music that’s holiday merry and bright and retail

ads grow markedly festive anticipating spirited holiday sales, I

begin to feel like a killjoy.

Just when the world begins to gear up to revel through at least

three holidays -- Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, or Hanukkah

-- I’m preparing to fast. This year, hints of the coming dissonance

began exceptionally early.

In mid-October I went into Cost Plus to pick up some chocolate and

other seductive treats for a friend’s birthday and I was astonished

to find the aisles stocked with every manner of Christmas

paraphernalia: fancy chocolates and cookies; special-label wines and

beers; scented candles and soaps; gift wraps and cards; and row upon

row of glass, wood and straw Christmas tree ornaments.

I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes and conjured up

memories of the days when stores didn’t put out Christmas merchandise

until the weekend after Thanksgiving. I briefly hoped I was simply so

tired I had been seeing things.

But no. The store was shopping cart-to-shopping cart with people

buying for Christmas while Christmas was still 76 days, a Halloween

and a Thanksgiving, away.

I bought what I’d come for, got into my car and put the premature

Christmas experience out of my mind. Until Halloween, when driving

home after sunset I saw the lighted Christmas tree on top of the

high-rise Warner Plaza building.

Pointing it out to my husband, I said, “Oh, my gosh! What’s up

with that? Are they afraid they won’t find time to put it up later?”

Like Huntington Beach resident Julie Bixby who wrote a letter to

the editor of this paper about the tree on the Warner Plaza building,

I was dumbfounded to see the tree aglow on Halloween. What is the

point?

There are still people who like to take their holidays one at a

time and not so fast. And for many Christians whose churches follow a

liturgical calendar, the season before Christmas is not a time to

party hardy but a time of abstinence, fasting, self-examination and

penance that prepares them to commemorate the birth of their savior,

Jesus Immanuel.

Orthodox churches that commemorate the nativity on Dec. 25, begin

their Nativity Fast, which continues through Christmas Eve, on

Saturday, Nov. 15. Those that commemorate the nativity on Jan. 7

begin the fast on Nov. 27.

In the Western church the season is known as Advent and while it

is a season of introspection and a time of preparation for Christmas

Day, the fasting practiced during this time has, in some churches,

become less restricted than that of the 40-day Orthodox fast and the

season itself is shorter, beginning this year on Nov. 30, the first

Sunday in Advent and ending on Christmas Eve.

Regardless of when it begins, whether it’s called the Nativity

Fast or Advent and whether it lasts 40 or 30 days, the season is

prescribed by the Church for the same reason, to improve the

condition of the soul.

The fasting is a means to that end. It gives us more time for

prayer and self-examination because we spend less time shopping for

food, preparing food and eating. With stomachs less sated, we are

less lethargic, better able to pray.

We fast not just from food but also from all the distractions,

including entertainment, which tend to so easily clutter of lives.

This leaves room for us to consider how we spend the 24 hours God

gives us each day, how much we spend praying, reading Scripture,

reading the Church Fathers and doing charitable work.

The way a good diet and workouts at the gym strengthen our bodies,

a good fast strengthens our soul.

In the Orthodox Church this means eating less and abstaining from

certain foods. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are usually strict

fast days when meat, including fowl and fish with backbones; dairy;

olive oil and alcoholic beverages are not consumed.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays the fast is typically relaxed to allow

the use of wine and oil and on Saturdays and Sundays one’s diet can

include fish with backbones as well as wine and oil. The Most Rev.

Philip, Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian

Archdiocese of North America has decreed that those under his care in

the United States may relax their fast to observe the national

celebration of Thanksgiving Day, which falls on Nov. 27 during the

Nativity Fast this year.

Otherwise, the foods eaten during the fast are restricted to

vegetables and fruits, grains and nuts, and shellfish. Prayer, Bible

reading, reading the Church Fathers and almsgiving are also part of a

good fast, as church father, St. John Chrysostom, wrote:

“Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor

man, take pity on him. If you see a friend being honored, do not envy

him. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear

and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies. Let the

hands fast, by being free of avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing

to run after sin. Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to

glare at that which is sinful. Let the ear fast, by not listening to

evil talk and gossip. Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust

criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes,

but bite and devour our brothers?”