"Fasting: What’s the Point?" by A. Papanikolaou

A good friend sent me an article by Dr. Aristotle Papanikolaou titled “Fasting: What’s the Point?” published on the website publicorthodoxy.org Dr. Papanikolaou is the chair and co-director of the respected Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. I most certainly have no business commenting on every article that gets published, but because of the high profile of the piece posted on the first day of Great Lent coupled with the topic of fasting, I will share some thoughts.

I will not discuss the beautifully written apology for paper letter writing and Dr. Papanikolaou’s reminiscences about his grandparents. I encourage the pious reader to enjoy the story for themselves. In fact, I like that section so much that I feel inspired to write more paper letters for the very reasons that Dr. Papanikolaou so poignantly describes. We - of whom I am chief - do indeed tend to blunder through life without giving it the attention it requires. But it is not that - it is the answer to the main question at which the author arrives that lingered in my mind.

Dr. Papanikolaou suggests that “fasting is about attention”; it is about raising awareness, as it were (“bringing God to my awareness”). To illustrate this point, the author offers the following example:

I used to have a morning routine before going to work at Fordham. I would stop at Whole Foods, go to the breakfast bar, and get some bacon (as I got older, usually just one piece, which would always make the checkout persons laugh). On fast days, I would not go for the bacon, and in that moment, God would come to my awareness; in that moment, Whole Foods becomes a sacred space. Does that mean that I’m automatically closer to God? Does it mean that I love God more? Not necessarily, but bringing God to my awareness in a secular space does provide the conditions for that love to grow; it gives the relationship a chance, even in God’s “physical” absence, even when we cannot brush up against the “body” of God.

Seemingly, there is nothing objectionable in this passage or the conclusion drawn from it. Private feelings of a private person are beyond scrutiny. Except, this is a public person, vested with considerable teaching authority, writing in a public sphere. To be sure, all who engage in this exercise - again, of whom I am chief - produce clumsy conclusions and imperfect illustrations from time to time; this is not a reflection on the quality of a person’s thought but an opportunity for further development. Here, I would like to take this opportunity and develop some of the thoughts.