In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel and Epistle readings are both preparing us for Great Lent. They are speaking about food, because in Great Lent food is one of our chief occupations, preoccupations and sometimes even manias. (It can sometimes be a phobia, but it is mostly a mania.) Although the Lord and Saint Paul are speaking about food, primarily they are concerned about the attitude that is necessary when we fast.
The Lord is pointing out that, first of all, our attitude in fasting must be one of prayer. We do not fast simply because the rules say that we have to fast. If we are going to fast, we have to pray while we fast. Prayer goes with fasting like horses and carriages, hands in gloves, and ducks to water. If we undertake only to fast, we might as well be on a diet. It would not do us any more good than possibly losing weight. Fasting has to be accompanied by prayer and that is one of the reasons why in Great Lent we have many services in order to help us along in our praying. We need each other when we are praying. We can, of course, fast alone (the Lord exhorts us to fast alone in our closet and not to fast with fanfare). However, we pray together because we need each other. We give each other encouragement and strength to pray when we do it together, particularly in Lent when the devil is busy trying to keep us from doing what we are supposed to do. He is busy trying to make us interested in and nostalgic for a T-bone steak every day. He is anxious to try to make us think that praying is too much trouble, too tiring, too much of a struggle. All that discouragement and despair he tries to throw under our feet so that we will slip on a banana peel and forget where we are going and what we are doing. That is why we need to be here as much as possible.
However, even more, the fact that we are praying is not enough. The Lord is asking of us a certain attitude of heart : an attitude of heart which is sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of other people. Although I may be strong and have liberty in the Lord, I am not going to exercise my freedom when I know that my brother or sister is going to fall because of my strength. And so I appear weak in the presence of other people. For instance, perhaps I know that the Lord is going to forgive me if I do not keep the strictest, total vegetable fast in Lent because I work hard or because of some other reason. Yet I know that I have a brother or sister who is a fanatic about the vegetable fast. Therefore, I do not cause my brother or sister to stumble and fall into sin by my insisting on eating cheese in front of my weaker brother or sister. Instead, I eat what that person eats when I am around that person. However, the same thing should go for the strict vegetable-faster, too, who knows that someone may have a physical weakness or some other reason for not keeping the strictest fast. If a person in good faith and with a good heart is able to keep a very strict fast in Lent, when he or she is with those who are unable by reason of heavy work or whatever other reason to keep a strict fast in Lent, then one, in one’s strength, bends the rules and does not cause another to stumble.
The Lord is calling us to be sensitive about each other. He calls us to care for each other, and to love each other enough to know what our weaknesses are and not to play on them but to be sensitive and considerate of them. By being like this, we will be able to encourage each other to live the Christian life as we cling to the Lord and persevere in the fast. May we be able together in a little while with joy to glorify and worship the Lord in His Resurrection from the dead. As pre-Lent comes to an end, tomorrow we will be ready to forgive each other for everything visible and invisible, known and unknown, voluntary and involuntary that we have done or not done to each other. We will begin the fast with a clean slate, asking God to help us keep the fast.
May that same Lord, indeed, help us to pass through this Great Lent in such a way that we will be yet stronger in our ability to remember Him, to imitate His love, to do the work of His love at all times throughout the year. May our lives thus glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.