Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Advent.. Fasting and Abstaining

Advent starting the in the Eastern Catholic churches on Monday evening at the conclusion of St. Philip's feast day. Though retailers might not let you believe it Advent is the time BEFORE Christmas (12/25), the 12 days of Christmas (12/25 and next 11 days), and the Christmas season - which I think lasts until 2/2 - don't hold me on the last one.

In this period of time in preparation for Christmas it is recommended that praying as well as fasting and abstaining (there is a difference between the two!) be observed so that the feast that is Christmas can be properly celebrated and appreciated. Similar recommendations are given for Lent in preparation for Easter/Pascha. However, being that I am pregnant the Church and all of Her Wisdom has given me a free pass so we've got the tree up and the lights out and the Nativity scene arranged in the yard already. Here's to being pregnant!!! NOT!

Older people, children, pregnant and nursing women, as well as those with other medical reasons/illnesses are not recommended to do the full fasting/abstaining regiment - because it is super intense. Instead, doing something to keep the fasting preparation period is prescribed.

Why is this blog worthy? Only because I will not be on Facebook until Christmas. I had Lee change my password and I have not been on since Monday night. Hopefully nothing urgent will come up - and it never does. The FB issue came up about a month ago when I was reading a blog about how someone was thinking about deleting their Facebook because it was a major distraction/waste of time. I get on FB way way way too much but I did not want to delete my account since I have my blog posts post to my wall - thus changing the password was the best of both worlds...

Also, decided it would be a wise idea to abstain from sweets for Advent not only because it will be challenging but I also failed the glucose test and then I went on a major binge. So sweets are definitely something I can do without for a while and it certainly won't hurt baby #2. It will make Christmas morning stocking with Godiva chocolates at my parents house even better - but I don't think that we had the silver dollar sized blue, green, red and gold foils last year - could be wrong. Maybe this year - those things are big time tradition in the McV household for Christmas stocking candies. Pretty much as big of a staple as the toothbrush at the dentist.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have a good place to find recipes for Advent/Lent? I have a cook book by a Byzantine Priest but it includes butter which makes me irritated, that and oil! We try to do the Eastern fast because the Western one is frankly wimpy but I can never figure out what to make. Suggestions? And yes, we must meet!

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  2. I can collect some recipes. Lee pretty much does all the cooking and never uses recipes - so I'll get some from him and our priest's wife - she has some really good recipes. During Lent we will eat fish and oil on the weekends so some recipes may include it : ) He has a couple soups that are amazing!!!

    For the record we probably met in passing at J&C's wedding in SC and I totally could relate to your speech/toast in terms of getting married to a man who can talk abot theology for hours and hours and hours and not think anything of it and losing a great Irish name to a last name that, well, just does not stack up!

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