Isn't it time to wake up and pay attention to the main thing - to the eternal words of the Eternal God? Otherwise, the sheep of the church flock risk being goats, and the shepherds are at risk of being wolves.

Let us remember the Maccabees - let us read the books of Maccabees. When the memory of Jeremiah comes, we will find his book in the Bible. And we will celebrate the Liturgy festively on the feast day of Abraham, Amos, and Zechariah.

Such is the necessity. Such is the challenge of the days with which we are enveloped.

1390 The Fast of the Assumption: Christians vs. Philosophers

Fasting without prayer is a diet, nothing more. Diet is also good. It lightens the flesh, gives a sense of joy in life, and so on and so forth. Someone will tell you: "I am on a diet, and you are fasting. What's the difference?" And you tell him: "Well, you know. Well, you see." Then he will know nothing and understand nothing. Plus, he will be sure that both his diet and our fast are something, if not completely the same, then very similar.

Woe to us. We do not know how to explain or defend our faith. Everyone's eyes are smart, but the words are not the same. Unlike us, there were certain monks who were asked by philosophers: "And you do not marry, neither do we. And you sleep on the ground - and we. And you walk forever in the same clothes, and we in the same cloak. What's the difference between us?"

Photo: Irina_Kirshen_Medintseva, photosight.ru

This was at a time when philosophy was not an armchair discipline, but a way of life. According to this criterion, today we have no philosophers at all, alone, I will not say who. So, those monks to whom the question was addressed answered: "In outward signs, you and we differ little. But we trust in God and abide in grace."

Based on what has been said, we can say something similar about our fasting. For example: "We learn to love God and often remember the coming of His Only-begotten Son into the world. We also love the Mother of Jesus Christ, "Who served such a terrible Mystery." This post is dedicated to Her. Fasting, we trust in God and abide in grace, since the Virgin Mary Herself is grace-filled, and the Angel said to Her: "Rejoice, O Blessed One, the Lord is with Thee."

If you eat and drink less, or even do not eat at times and do not drink at all, then what to do? Prayer! Without which fasting is just a diet, and nothing more. Prayer is needed: strong, collected, fervent, for oneself and for everyone. Not just the reading of certain prayer texts, which in itself is a commendable school of prayer, but not the whole prayer. It is necessary not to pretend to be a praying person, but it is necessary to pray itself, which (God sees) changes a person, "made a child of this light."

The Mother of God knows how to pray. I studied this all my life. In silence, in simplicity, in solitude. Now working, now resting, now getting up, now lying down, She had God in Her memory and His name on Her lips. Then, having been vouchsafed the visit of Gavrilov and carried in her womb, she listened all the more to the beating and growth of the fruit in herself, answering every movement of her Son with a prayer to His Father.

And then she followed her Son, "laying down all His words in Her heart." Then she burned in the fire of unbearable suffering, standing under the Cross, but she did not abandon prayer. Then she changed sorrow into joy and preached salvation to people in Him Whom she carried, and nourished, and heard.

And then it was time for Her to die. And again her prayer intensified and multiplied, in response to which the Son Himself came and took the Mother's soul in his arm. Then there was Her resurrection and ascension to heaven, from where She sees us, and visits us, and appears with intercession and manifold help.