Pom Pom had asked a question recently that I have been meaning to answer....
She wanted to know about the fast that we are in right now.
It's a great little summer fast; it is for the Mother of God;
I know that some of my readers may not understand this term;
it was established by the 4th Century AD in an effort to show
both the humanity and divinity of Christ;
the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ as fully God and fully man;
the Church at the time was dealing with the Nestorian heresy
which was trying to take a way the name of the Virgin Mary,
which in Greek is Theotokos
Theo = God
Tokos = bearer
Theotokos = God-bearer
(if you want to know more, see here).
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Of course the Church was getting this also right from the Holy Gospel.
when St. Elizabeth, the Mother of St. John the Baptist,
asks the Virgin Mary:
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Now that this is clear,
the little summer fast is for the Mother of God,
and is specifically about her death.
While this event is not in the Gospels itself, it is in very
early Church documents and Church tradition;
you can read more here on this, to see how she was already
being written about by the 1st Century and by very early Christians.
If you want to know more, some places to look are
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So the Dormition fast for the "New Calendar" Orthodox Christians
(they have Christmas on Dec 25) is from August 1-14, with August 15
being the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God;
the "Old Calendar" Orthodox Christians (who have Christmas on Jan 7),
Dormition fast is from August 14-August 27, with Dormition being August 28th.
It's too bad in a lot of ways that we Orthodox are on 2 calendars,
but these decisions were made in the 1920's in some but not all
ethnically Orthodox Countries; so we are stuck with the calendar
split now; the time that the Orthodox calendar is still 'one' is from
Lent-Pentecost...
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Anyway, there's a bit about the fast!
If you are fasting fully (We fast according to our health needs)
this means that you would be abstaining from meat and dairy products.
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It's really a lovely fast and a favourite of mine!
And the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ is right in the middles of it!
But that's for another post... :)
We are praying for one of my Husband's Uncles who is in his last hours now,
after a very long valiant struggle with cancer; he is a very Christian man and
I had the honour of meeting him a few summers ago.
His immediate family is with him, as well as others...and the rest of us are
surrounding him with prayer....
I got some new books recently!
I am reading some incredible ones right now,
including Donald Sheehan's Grace of Incorruption
that in time I hope to write on; it's a book one needs to read
slowly or one misses a lot of what is being said; it's a beautiful,
riveting and thought-provoking book.
We stayed local today for church...not the original plan,
but our AC stopped cooling on Saturday and we had to be nearby for
the hydro company to come and check it out...
only to find out that it had froze up so much that a copper pipe was
totally white with frost!
So we are carefully defrosting it and trying to make sure that it does not leak into our
neighbour's unit below us (this has happened before!).... sadly! ...
So we have been having no-bake cold meals...
but it's summer, so lots of wonderful fruit to enjoy!
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The AC person comes back tomorrow, hopefully everything will be put aright!
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And that's the latest here!
What's going on in your neck of the woods?
