"Before tv, fasting was a community affair. To truly approach Lent with mind, soul and body, turn off the tv and devote that time to prayer or charitable works of mercy. These take us away from the sources of temptation and keep our minds focused on God."
TV certainly doesn't make living a Christian life any easier, does it? Fasting, as I am sure you have found in your Maronite parish, is still a community affair for some of us. Last night we had our last parish supper with meat. At vespers tonight we begin "cheesfare" week, which is the first week of a partial fast for Great Lent...no meat. The real fast starts at vespers next Sunday. Everyone in the parish is talking about the upcoming fast, exchanging recipes, what we will serve at the parish suppers for fast food that the Catholics will eat (the Protestants generally stay away from the suppers during Great Lent...the word got out that there's no souvlakia, moussaka, pastichio or egg based desserts!). Today people were giving out urls for Lenten recipe sites on the web!
It is easier to do the fast in a community. For those of us "in the world", it would be very, very hard to do it alone. But as part of the Eucharistic community of The Church, a community in which we spend substantially more time during Great Lent than the rest of the year, its actually a time we all look forward to.
So, this year the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are synchronized to the same calendar! Next Sunday, the Maronite Church celebrates Cana Sunday - the first Sunday of Lent. Do you also have Ash Monday?
Ahhhh, you have a Parish Hall! We lost ours several years ago, during a waning period with no priest assigned to the parish. Abouna plans to bring this all back but first, we must complete the work on our future church. Once that is done and the Church is dedicated, the current 'church' will become the Parish Hall. He is quite the visionary and strategized plans on how to use it to raise much needed funds for the parish. May Bishop Mansour keep him assigned here for many years to come!
Our annual Hafli has been held at St. Sophia's GOC Hall, for several years. We truck in our serving dishes but use their kitchen to prepare for the event. It's a lot of work to haul, unbox, rinse and set up all these dishes for the event, only to turn around and do it again during the wee hours of the following morning. We are all looking forward to that day when we will once again have a Hall where we can share meals.
Today people were giving out urls for Lenten recipe sites on the web!
Oh please post some of these for all of us to share :-0!