Excerpt from Dr. Mamalakis’ talk titled “Stop Feeding Our Souls Froot Loops
“Georgia and I have friends and they took their family to a resort for a week. They went with their two young boys, 8 years old and 6 years old.
When they came back, we asked them ‘How was the resort?’
And they said, ‘It was spectacular. Everything was amazing’. They said they only had one frustration. They said, ‘The breakfast at this resort was just … spectacular!’ And they started to describe it … where you walk in, and there are seven types of fruit juices, an entire table of different breads and croissants and muffins, an entire table of cheeses that are countless, and then the meat table with all the meats. You don’t even know what types of meats they are. And then the omelet bar with seventeen things you can put in an omelet…
And I said ‘That was wonderful! What was frustrating?’
And they said, ‘Our two boys walked right through this extravagant breakfast buffet.’
If anyone has 8 and 6 year-old boys, you know what they did. They went right over to the cereal section, poured themselves a bowl of Fruit Loops and went to their table.
And the husband said, ‘Do you know how much that bowl of fruit loops cost me?’ …
And he wanted to tell his sons ‘Do you see this spread? How could you pass this up? You can get Fruit Loops at home!’ And the boys would say something like ‘We like the Fruit Loops. We are used to the Fruit Loops. The Fruit Loops are easy!’ And maybe the parents would try and convince them, ‘There is no nutritional value in Fruit Loops!’ But, they don’t seem to care. That is an image of Great and Holy Lent for the Orthodox Church.
Many of us, when we think about Lent, we think about giving things up, losing things, but, in fact, the Orthodox understanding of Great Lent is not so much about giving up things, but it’s about delighting in the Feast that God – through his Church- lays out before us, of all the things that nourish our souls. Because it’s easy, as we go through our lives, busy with things of this world, that slowly, slowly our souls get starved. Lent is a time, now, to change how we use our time … to change what we do with our money … to change our lifestyles, specifically, to draw close to God and nourish on the Feast – on the food that feeds our soul.
I do not have enough time to go through the incredible banquet of the Feast that the Church lays out for us during Holy Lent, but I want to highlight just a few things that are offered before us…”
THE ORTHODOX FAMILY 
Leave a comment