Observing a Strict Fast on Great and Holy Friday

All adults who receive Communion in the Eparchy of Passaic are required to abstain from meat, eggs, and milk products on Great and Holy Friday. Why? Read the excerpt below from Bishop Kurt's Lenten Pastoral Reflection...

”We know that the earliest Christians fasted because there are rules in one of the oldest Christian books. The Didache is a book of Christian doctrine as old as parts of the Bible. It says, ’Do not fast on Tuesday and Thursday as the Pharisees, but on Wednesday and Friday.’ Today, we probably would not consider that a very good reason for choosing those days, but now you know that the earliest Christians did fast on Wednesday and Friday, just as people did in our church until the newest generations. How did people lose a tradition that was so ancient and continuous? Some say it is because of the modern Western heresy that the flesh is not important. In recent years I have heard well-meaning people repeat the misleading slogan, ’You are a spiritual being having a human experience.’ In other words, your spirit is important, but your flesh is hiding your spiritual nature. That slogan is simply incompatible with our beliefs as Christians. God made us from the beginning with a body and a soul, and both of them together make us who we are. Just as we must discipline our spirit and our mind, we must also discipline our flesh. Our most basic desires are the desires to breathe, to drink, and to eat. We can’t stop breathing, though we can train it. We can’t stop drinking for very long without ruining our health. So, we follow the example of Jesus and we fast to discipline our flesh. If we can control this most basic of our desires, then it becomes easier to tame the other passions. Although our faith teaches that our flesh is important and essential, we cannot allow it to rule our whole person.”

”In our tradition, each year we celebrate Meatfare Sunday, and then a week later, we celebrate Cheesefare Sunday. They are called that for a reason. Meatfare Sunday is the last day to eat meat before Easter. Cheesefare Sunday is the last day to eat dairy products before Easter. How many people in our society are promoting a ’plant based’ diet nowadays? It is even promoted in our schools. Yet, these same leaders mock Christian discipline. They call us killjoys, and then they promote the same discipline for worldly reasons. The reason that we have our Easter baskets is that those are the very foods that were avoided for the fast of Great Lent: meat, butter, cheese, and eggs. When we all fast as a group, we are fasting as the Body of Christ which is the Church.”