{"id":312331,"date":"2021-03-17T15:47:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T13:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=312331"},"modified":"2021-03-17T15:47:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T13:47:19","slug":"fasting-is-a-struggle-for-each-christian-but-this-struggle-will-bring-spiritual-joy-metropolitan-nicolae-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/fasting-is-a-struggle-for-each-christian-but-this-struggle-will-bring-spiritual-joy-metropolitan-nicolae-says\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fasting is a struggle for each Christian. But this struggle will bring spiritual joy,” Metropolitan Nicolae says"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his\u00a0meditation<\/a>\u00a0at the beginning of Great Lent, the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of the Americas highlighted that the fasting season is a struggle for each Christian.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s world and our responsibilities in it don\u2019t encourage our fasting. During every fast, the struggle comes in trying to find a certain balance between our ascetical efforts and fulfilling our daily responsibilities. But this struggle will bring spiritual joy for the one who fasts and discovers the meaning of our Savior\u2019s words about feeding on the Word of God!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His Eminence Metropolitan Nicolae noted that \u201cfasting is related to one of God\u2019s provisions for mankind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Holy Fathers say that in Paradise man received the commandment to fast, to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Otherwise, he would die. The purpose of the commandment was to protect man from falling away from God, which brings death,\u201d Metropolitan Nicolae explained, quoting St Basil the Great, \u201c<\/span>Because we did not fast, we left Paradise and were driven out of it. Let us fast, so we enter Heaven again<\/span><\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeginning with the commandment in the Garden of Eden, continuing with the prophets Moses, Elijah, and Daniel, with St. John the Baptist, and then with the Savior Christ Himself, fasting has been a practice respected by all who wished to put aside material things to gain spiritual things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Referring to the Saviour\u2019s words that \u201c<\/span>Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes out of the mouth of God,<\/span><\/em>\u201d the Romanian Metropolitan of the Americas said that fasting does not mean just starving ourselves by abstaining from food, but nourishing ourselves with another kind of food\u2014spiritual food, which is the Word of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Savior tells us that man is not made of soul and body, the soul desiring spiritual things and the body desiring material things;\u00a0<\/span>but man is soul and body, and spiritual things can be nourishment even for the body.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“In fasting, we can experience that our body can also be nourished by another kind of food, not only by bread. This is because, as a result of our efforts in fasting, the body begins to let go a little of its attachment to material things and to receive spiritual things more. The very matter with which we are in solidarity through our body begins to be spiritualized through the work of grace, to which is added man\u2019s efforts to receive the Word of God. In fasting, we begin to understand a certain communion that was established between God and man before the fall of Adam, a communion in which the entire being of man, soul and body, participated. We also begin to understand the communion between us as people, related to our communion with God. The closer we get to God, the closer we get to our brothers as well.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Photo: mitropolia.us<\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter: @BasilicaNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his\u00a0meditation\u00a0at the beginning of Great Lent, the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of the Americas highlighted that the fasting season is a struggle for each Christian. \u201cToday\u2019s world and our responsibilities in it don\u2019t encourage our fasting. During every fast, the struggle comes in trying to find a certain balance between our ascetical efforts and fulfilling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":273816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5644,5634,25093,4145,4794,11829,21327,21613],"class_list":["post-312331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora-en","tag-fasting","tag-great-lent","tag-great-lent-2021","tag-metropolitan-nicolae","tag-romanian-diaspora","tag-romanian-orthodox-metropolis-of-the-americas","tag-solemn-year-2021","tag-spiritual-joy"],"better_featured_image":{"id":273816,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":790,"height":527,"file":"2020\/03\/mitropolitul-nicolae-a-slujit-impreuna-cu-mitropolitul-nathanael-de-chicago.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"mitropolitul-nicolae-a-slujit-impreuna-cu-mitropolitul-nathanael-de-chicago-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mitropolitul-nicolae-a-slujit-impreuna-cu-mitropolitul-nathanael-de-chicago-360x360.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"Aurel Para","camera":"Canon EOS 6D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1583694253","copyright":"paraaurel@gmail.com","focal_length":"47","iso":"1600","shutter_speed":"0.02","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":null,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mitropolitul-nicolae-a-slujit-impreuna-cu-mitropolitul-nathanael-de-chicago.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312331\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=312331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312331\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273816\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=312331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=312331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}