Quote for the Day: Feasting & Temperance & Moderation

[Shin]

'Brethren and fathers, most people call the present days feasts, because of they get drunk and debauched during them, not understanding that these days demand abstinence from meat, not indulgence in drunkenness and intoxication. That is proper to a pagan feast; it is the business of Christians to exercise self-control and not to satisfy the desires of the flesh, as the Apostle teaches. Nevertheless evil has progressed into law and leads the world as it wishes. But let us, brethren, flee intemperance even in partaking of things that are permitted, for we know that intemperance is the mother of sin.'

'For our forefather Adam, as long as he abstained from the forbidden food in Paradise, rejoiced and was made glad by divine visions and filled with divine revelations; but when he acted intemperately and partook of the tree of disobedience, he was at once exiled from the delight of Paradise and intemperance for him became the begetter of death. So too the inhabitants of Sodom behaved wantonly with food in abundance, and drew down upon themselves the anger of God and were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone. So too Esau the hated, entrapped by gluttonous eyes, exchanged his birth right for a meal. But the people of God sat down to eat and drink, and arose to play. These are the sort of things that are going on during these days; for revels and inebriation, shouting and demonic leapings require not only the day but most of the night as well. So intemperance is an evil, and through it death entered the world. But we should give thanks to God, brethren loved by the Lord, because he has rescued us from such empty behaviour and transferred us to this blessed life, in which there is not intemperance, but moderation; not drunkenness, but vigilance; not disturbance, but peace; not hubbub, but tranquility; not abuse, but thanksgiving; not wantonness, but purity, holiness and temperance. From this it was that our inspired fathers sprang up, who with God trampled down the passions, expelled demons, rivaled angels, performed signs from God, attained heavenly glory, were a cause of wonder in the world. One of them was the blessed Antony, whose life we have been reading; and we have learnt how God magnified him in this world under heaven, so that the kings of the earth thought it important to write to him and to hear from him a written voice.'

St. Theodore the Studite