The Nativity Fast was established so that, prior to the day of Christ’s birth, we might be purified through repentance, prayer, and fasting, in order that, with pure hearts, souls, and bodies, we may welcome the Son of God who has been revealed to the world, and that, alongside ordinary gifts and offerings, we may present to Him our purified heart and our desire to follow His teaching.
In the spirit of the blessed season of the Nativity Fast, through which we prepare for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, visitors to the Kinonia portal are given the opportunity, through selected content from the categories of the written and spoken word, to be instructed in the importance of a gradual and attentive preparation for this most joyous feast.
Since during the time of fasting it is necessary to nourish our soul with prayer and the word of God more than to feed the body with food and bodily pleasures, we commend to your attention the section In Anticipation of the Christ Child, which presents texts, homilies, lectures, interpretations of liturgical services, and excerpts from hymnography, all viewed in the light of the feast day on which we celebrate the Incarnation of the enfleshed Logos of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally, we recall the exhortation of Saint Basil the Great: “Do not limit the virtue of fasting merely to dietary restraint. True fasting is not only abstinence from various kinds of food, but abstinence from passions and sins: that you do no injustice to anyone, that you forgive your neighbour for the offence he has committed against you, for the wrong he has done you, for the debt he owes you. Otherwise, you abstain from meat, yet you devour your own brother. You do not drink wine, yet you humiliate another human being.”
Source: Kinonia Portal
