December 2021 Letter

Dear brethren,

With the beginning of Nativity fast, we learn from the teachings of the late Pope Shenouda, about “the Importance of fasting”:

Fasting is prevention. It is – above all – self-control.

It is the first commandment that God gave to man:

• He prevented him from eating from one tree in Paradise, saying to him: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2: 17). Thus, the first man lived controlling himself in this respect, until Satan tempted him. Craved and ate and fell (Gen 3: 6).
• And God had created man as a vegetarian from the beginning, eating vegetables and the fruits of trees (Gen 1: 29). The animals also ate nothing but grass (Gen 1: 20). And God did not allow man to eat meat, except after evil abounded in the earth and God grieved that He created man (Gen 6: 6-7). Therefore, God allowed the flood and wiped out every living thing on the face of the earth, except for the family of our father Noah and the animals that entered with them into the ark …
• Then God allowed man to eat meat after Noah’s ark had landed. He said: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen 9; 3-4).
• And so with the permission to eat meat, the element of prevention remained present, which is the prevention of blood. People are to refrain from eating blood. And also from a man shedding the blood of his brother (Gen 9: 6) … He was also prevented from eating blood in the law that he presented to humans through the prophet Moses (Gen 17: 10). The same applies to the acceptance of gentiles, when the holy fathers, the apostles, said in the first council they held: “that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality …” (Acts 15: 29).
• In the law, too, it was forbidden to eat the meat of unclean animals.

Fasting is not only a virtue related to food: what do you eat? And when do you eat? But there is also the fasting of the soul…

It is very good for the body to be fasting, but is the soul also fasting? There is a higher degree of the fasting soul, which is the ascetic soul. But because this asceticism is not possible for everyone, so limits have been placed for it in relation to the ordinary person … Even the fasting of the body, specific days and occasions have been set for it, because not every person can fast continuously.

But fasting of the heart, mind and senses from sin, is required of everyone. The one who fasts his mouth from food, and does not fast his heart from sinful desires, and his tongue from wrong words, just as he does not fast his mind from vanities, then this person’s fast is invalid… God wants purity of the heart above all else. It is from the purity of the heart that all kinds of fasting, whether related to the body or the soul, come from.

The blessings of St. Mary mother of God, and the Nativity fast be with us always, Amen.

Belleville, December 1, 2021

رسالة شهر ديسمبر٢٠٢١