Día 1 · The Nativity Fast
The Fast Begins (en inglés)
Por ahora, los textos de estas oraciones están en inglés. Solo publicamos en español las oraciones cuya traducción podemos verificar en una fuente ortodoxa publicada o en la Reina-Valera 1909.
“I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”Genesis 3:15
Reflexión (en inglés)
Today the Nativity Fast begins: forty days of preparing for the birth of Christ. It is also called the Christmas Fast, or the Fast of St Philip, because it begins the day after his feast. We start where the Bible's story of hope starts, in the garden, just after the fall. Even as God names the consequences of sin, he makes a promise: the woman's offspring will bruise the serpent's head. Christians have long called this verse the “first gospel.” Everything we will read in these forty days unfolds from this one promise, kept at last in Bethlehem.
Una oración (en inglés)
Lord God, from the very beginning you did not abandon us. Even when we turned away, you promised a Saviour. As this Fast begins, open my heart to receive him. Help me to fast with humility and joy, to pray more, and to love more, so that I may greet your Son with a clean heart. Amen.
Llévalo contigo (en inglés)
What one simple practice will you keep during these forty days?