Today is the joyful forefeast of the time of abstinence, the bright threshold of the Fast. Therefore, brethren, together let us run the race with confident hope and with great eagerness.
— Ode I, First Canon of Cheesefare Monday
“One should not think about the doings of God when one’s stomach is full; on a full stomach there can be no vision of the Divine mysteries.”
+ St. Seraphim of Sarov, “The Spiritual Instructions to Laymen and Monks”, printed in Little Russian Philokalia: St. Seraphim of Sarov