Throughout Lent and other fasting periods, I work hard to offer resources and information around food and nutrition. As a registered dietitian, a food and nutrition expert, I seek to educate and inspire. And yet paradoxically, Lent is about the food, and not about the food at all. 

During the Pre-Lenten period (the 3 weeks leading up to Clean Monday), we hear several Epistle and Gospel readings around this topic of food and fasting. Now, a few weeks into Lent, I’m bringing them back, all together in one place, for our reflection. I offer my own thoughts at the end of each passage, and I would love to learn what stirs in your own heart when you read these excerpts from God’s love letter to us.

The period of Pre-Lenten Sundays in the Orthodox Church prepare us for the coming of Great Lent.

Raise your hand if you’re starting to feel those physical effects of fasting...hungry, a little tired, maybe even irritable? We call it being snippy in our household. When we strip away the excess comforts of life, fasting from food and other pleasures, feasting on prayer and silence, our latent sinful tendencies start to bubble up. There’s a reason “hanger” is a thing!

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, fasting is a spiritual discipline that has been passed down through Holy Tradition and includes limiting certain types of food and the amount of food eaten for a designated period of time. 

According to Fr. Schmemann (in his book Great Lent: Journey to Pascha), the Orthodox faith teaches two different modes of fasting rooted in Scripture and Tradition: total fast and ascetical fast.