The Apostles Fast?
by Fr. John Theodosion
began to prepare for their departure from Jerusalem to carry Christ’s message to the far corners of the world. As part of their preparation, they began a fast as Christ did before beginning with prayer to ask God to strengthen their resolve and to be with them in their missionary undertakings.
It is this fast that we ourselves participate in when we observe the Apostles’ Fast. We too prepare ourselves to be sent as missionaries into our world to reflect and radiate Christ to those around us. Somewhere along the line, we seem to have disconnected ourselves from the Apostles. We’ve placed them on a very high plane so that we may admire them and their spirituality and not thinking that we share with them tasks where our own personal lives are concerned. When Christ asked his sleeping disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane why they could not watch and pray with Him for one hour, He was actually giving all of us some real practical guidance on how much time we should be spending in prayer.
Today we think that His words were only for His apostles and disciples, for those who made a radical commitment to follow Him until the end of their days, and how wrong they are. The apostles were people like we are. Saint Peter was actually so filled with a sense of his own sinfulness that he felt it was inappropriate for him to even speak with Jesus at their first meeting. And it was he who denied Christ three times.
Later, through the power of the Holy Spirit, it was into this same Peter’s shadow that sick people would try and throw themselves in the hope of receiving healing! It was Saint Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, who called himself the “least of the disciples.” He considered himself to be a full member of the apostolic group, not withstanding that he did not even see Christ before His Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Saint Paul did “see Christ” however. He saw Him in His heavenly glory. Paul’s apostolic zeal was second to none and he was determined to make the whole world be as he was, that is, see with the eyes of the faith he had.
In her liturgy, the Church sometimes numbers the two assistants of Peter and Paul among the ranks of the Apostles, the two Evangelists, Mark and Luke. It was Mark in whose parents’ house the Mystical (Last) Supper was held. Luke was a Syrian, former pagan doctor, whose great secular education put him right in Paul’s league. It was appropriate for the Apostle to the Gentiles to have a Gentile assistant!
In addition, Christ chose 70 disciples, reflecting the choice of 70 judges by Moses who helped him govern Israel. These 70 disciples went out, two by two, as did the Apostles, and preached, prayed, healed and witnessed.
Added to this Apostolic Choir were the women who assisted Christ throughout his earthly sojourn. Saint Mary Magdalene was the most famous “Equal to the Apostles.” Many people believe that she was the “sinful woman” of the New Testament. A sister of Lazarus and Martha of Bethany, Mary Magdalene was a woman of means who used her resources to help the spread of the Christian message. She was even invited by the Emperor of Rome, Tiberius himself, to dine with him! It was during that dinner that Mary Magdalene tried to convert him and then occurred the famous miracle of the egg. The Emperor stopped her when she was talking about the Resurrection of Christ. He told her that there was no way that someone who had suffered so much on the Cross could rise from the dead. It was as impossible as an egg turning red! At that, Mary Magdalene lifted up an egg and it turned red in her hands, a kind of ancestor to the Pascha Egg, the symbol of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection! We are all called to be such, as a matter of fact. We may not be called to witness to Christ just as the original Apostles did. We may not be called to die for Christ as they and others did, but living our faith on a daily basis is a wonderful witness to others.
The Apostles did great work to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and His Church, as did their successors, the Bishops. When Christ told His disciples to go and preach to all nations, He had us in mind as well. When He set the standards of “feeding the hungry, clothing the naked” and others, He was also using these in a spiritual sense. How many are around us who thirst for spirituality? How many who hunger for the Word of God? What about those in the prison of their own sinfulness? Or who are naked, that is, unclothed by the Grace of the Holy Spirit? These are all apostolic opportunities that are presented to us by our Lord Himself. As Saint Peter said, our battle is with principalities and dominions etc. the representatives of the Evil One. And they are something that can only be cast out with prayer and fasting.
The guidelines for the fast laid out by the Archdiocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in North America are to abstain from meat on all days except Wednesday and Friday when the rules for the normal strict fast apply. On the week following Pentecost, which this year is May 31st, and continues until June 29th with the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. On June 30 we celebrate the Synaxis of the 12 Holy Apostles. Please consult your church calendar, it displays the proper fasting guidelines for each day of the week throughout the year.
Do you know the names of the 12 Apostles? See below for answer.
The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew, the First-called; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who was also the Evangelist and Theologian; Philip, and Bartholomew (see also June 11); Thomas, and Matthew the publican, who was also called Levi and was an Evangelist; James the son of Alphaeus, and Jude (also called Lebbaeus, and surnamed Thaddaeus), the brother of James, the Brother of God; Simon the Cananite ("the Zealot"), and Matthias, who was elected to fill the place of Judas the traitor (see Aug. 9).
