Beyond the four seasonal fasts, the Orthodox Church keeps a weekly fast on Wednesdays and Fridays through most of the year. The two days are chosen by memory: on Wednesday the Lord was betrayed, and on Friday He was crucified. To fast on these days is to keep a small weekly Pascha in reverse, to stand, each week, beneath the Cross.
This weekly rhythm is, for many, the steadiest part of the fasting life: not the long seasons that come and go, but the two ordinary days that return every week and quietly reshape the year. It is a fast of remembrance, keeping the Passion of Christ from ever being far from the mind.
There are weeks when the fast is set aside, the bright fast-free weeks the Church appoints after certain feasts, and the weekly fast, like all the others, is kept according to one's strength and one's priest's blessing. Its constancy is its gift: a small cross taken up again and again.