Daily bread and dreaming of meat

Actually, reducing the amount of food IS a requirement of the fast. Alas, many of us Orthodox often only abstain from animal products, alcohol and olive oil without reducing the amount by much if any; and that is falling short of the full observance. After all, it's called "The Great Fast," not "The Great Vegan Venture." In Orthodox monasteries where the ideal is more frequently striven for, only one meal a day is served on the weekdays of the Great Fast. So, allowing wine and oil with two meals a day on the weekends is a huge consolation. And FISH on Annunciation? WOW!

As I recall, the older Western fasting rules still in force before Vatican II also explicitly called for reducing the amount of food to two half meals and one full meal a day, but with only flesh meat being off limits three days a week. Or something like that. The older the Western fasting guidelines you look at, the more they look like Orthodox fasting guidelines. For example, the Rule of Saint Benedict prohibits meat for monks period, exactly as in the East; and Advent was kept as a fast; and the eves of Christmas and Epiphany were kept as strict fasts exactly as in the East. And every Wednesday and Friday were fasts. Serious fasting was a part of the Christian ethos from the very beginning, being inherited from Jewish practice and expanded upon in imitation of Chirst's forty days in the wilderness.

As an interesting aside, when Orthodox Missionaries evangelized Alaska, they didn't stress fasting because life there was just too harsh. If a caribou wandered into the village in Lent and you were hungry, then you killed it, gave thanks, and ate. I imagine that fasting guidelines in the West loosened up when, say, Rome fell and centuries of invasions and wars began. But that's another topic.

Anyway, I strive to look at my own plate, not anyone else's.

Yes, as Roman Catholic lent draws to a close, I'm a little surprised that it's not really as hard to go carne-vale as I thought it'd be.

But nonetheless, I've been wanting bratwursts so badly for the last 6 weeks that our little dachshund is getting nervous.