The shepherd directs the message of the Great Fasting: We were able to stand up and rescue

The shepherd saw that “at the historical moment we are going through, we were able to stand up and resist.”

The shepherd sent the message of great fasting, entitled “The Great Fasting is a collective march”, and he stated: “We are all invited to fasting the great fasting, according to the example of the Lord Jesus who“ fasted forty days and forty nights until hungry ”(Matthew 4: 2). The group of forty days is based on three: fasting, prayer, and integrated and interconnected charity: fasting by interruption from half of the night to noon, as a sign of repentance, crushing heart and regret from the accidental and deadly sins, while recognizing it. The repentance renews and begins a new life. It is a time to return to God with the secret of repentance that the Lord Jesus established, with a flood of his love and divine mercy, as it is a new birth, which is erased by ancient life distorted with sins. Fasting is a sacred time that we return to God, and solidarity with the brothers, and we share Christ his fast, his life and his pain, and we are bound by the deceased. Prayer is to raise the mind and the heart to God, which is the answer of man to the word of God who fed faith in us. It is the humility of the heart before the greatness of God. It is the need for a person to God, from which every good gift is from it. The time of fasting is the time of prayer and renewal with the gifts of God. The true and acceptable prayer is the prayer of the heart, not the lips. If the heart is far from God, the lips of the lips lose its value. The heart is the inhabitants of God, where our prayers become a relationship with God and a company with him. Charity is the involvement of our brothers in their needs of what we have, whether it is a lot or a little. By sharing and sharing, we triumph over the experience of selfishness, greed for possession and love of money that contradicts the priority of God in our lives. The worship of the money of the world separates us from God and the people, and we are cheating with happiness. Charity is a love that we do towards who is or they are in material or moral need, spiritual or social. With them, the Lord Jesus (see Matthew 25: 35-36).

He continued: “The duty of charity is either directly or either by gatherings, societies, charitable institutions and well -known organizations, such as the Cartitas Lebanon Association, which is the” Social Church in Lebanon “, and covers its centers all Lebanese lands. She holds her campaign of donation throughout this great fast. We thank all the donors, individuals and groups. ”

Popular directives

A- Great fasting and sector in it and outside

1. Big Fasting lasts seven weeks, in preparation for Easter. It starts in two ash, and the day of Saturday ends in the evening. It is based on refraining from food from the middle of the night until twelve o’clock in the afternoon, and the sector for meat, whiteness (milk, its derivatives and eggs).

2. Fasting and sliced ​​the days of spoiling and the following festivals: Mar John Maroun (March 2), forty martyrs (March 9), Mar Youssef (March 19), Bechara Al -Akra (25 March) and Shafi’i parish. As for the pain week from Monday to Saturday, fasting and the sector remain mandatory.

3. Fasting and sector in general is exempted from the patients and the elderly who are imposed by their healthy reality eating food to strengthen, especially those who take medications associated with their chronic diseases and who are in special health conditions, in addition to patients who are undergoing temporary or periodic hospitalization. It is known that the children start fasting in the year that follows their first offering, while considering their conditions in the days of study.

These exempted from the law of fasting and the sector are called to be satisfied with a little breakfast to take the medicine.

Due to the requirements of life and to relieve the shoulders of the believers and the believers, the law of the sector remains mandatory, in the first week of the great fasting, and in the week of pain, provided that those who cannot adhere to the sector are compensated for actions of good and mercy.

4. The slicer is practiced in the segment on the occasion of three holidays, and we each one of them confined to a week with our authority. It is the following: the sector of the two saints, the Apostles Boutros, Paul, and the twelve Apostles (from 21 to 28 June), and the transmission of the Virgin Mary (from August 8 to August) and the birth of Christmas (from 16 to 24 December).

5. As for Friday, it remains throughout the year. It is excluded from the Friday of the elevated week, and the Friday days between Easter and Al -Anasa, and between the birthdays and apostasy. The Friday days in which the following holidays fall are enriched: the child’s betrayal of Jesus (first January), Mar Antonius the Great (January 17), Christ entered the Temple (February 2) by Mar John Maroun (March 2), forty martyrs ( March 9), Mar Youssef’s feast (March 19), Bishara Al -Virgin (March 25), The Holy Day of the Apostles Boutros and Paul (June 29), Virgin Mary’s Day (15 August), Feast of the Head of John the Baptist (August 29), the Virgin Birthday (September 8), the feast of the holy cross (September 14), the feast of the rope with our Virgin Mary without impurity (January 8 The first), the birthday of the Lord Jesus (25 December), Shafi’a Day, Jesus’ Heart Day.

B- Equipment fasting

It is the discontinuation of light food by priests and believers in preparation for eating the sacred offering during the divine sacrifice at least an hour before the start of the Divine Liturgy. On the occasion, we are mentioned to preserve the state of grace and decency in dress and reverence, and to evoke Christ the Lord present under the forms of bread and wine.

Conclusion

6. Great fasting is the “acceptable time” with its spiritual and human entitlement, which is derived from fasting, prayer and charity, and from repentance and reconciliation. It is the “time of grace” that leads us to “crossing” with the Easter of Christ to the new life.

We ask God for the intercession of our mother, the Virgin Mary, the lady of Lebanon, and our father, Saint Maroun, to include in his grace all the sons of our church, shepherds, priests, monks, nuns and believers, in Lebanon, the patriarchal scope and the countries of spread. We seek stability and peace for our homelands, glorifying the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.