TIME IS LIKE A DREAM/AND NOW, FOR A TIME, YOU ARE MINE: Yet more reader comments on NFP and liturgical time (not using names b/c I haven’t asked permission, but if you see this and don’t mind, email me and I’ll add your name back in):

#1:

Hi Eve,

It may interest you that if you go to Ethiopia today, you’ll find that few weddings take place during the fasting seasons (Lent, Advent, Apostles, Dormition,…) and during the rainy season (mid-June to early September). Even the non-Orthodox (Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics) will tend towards avoiding these dates so that their Orthodox friends (about 50% of the population) can attend the wedding.

Between Easter and the June rains, there’s usually a bit of April and June, and the whole of May. Interstingly, May (or the Ethiopian somewhat equivalent – Ginbot) is associated with negative superstitions, which means that late April and early June is heavy wedding season. Some folks end up going to more than one a day!

A significant portion of the Orthodox observe the fasts to some extent or another. It’s palpable to any visitor. Restaurant menus change, butchers and dairies scale down, and there’s a relative serenity in the air.

Also not (quite) on board with the sharp separation at the end between pragmatic discipline and spiritual discipline…

#2:

I thought you might like this little mnemonic verse on the Forbidden Times of Marriage (Pre-VII):
Advent bids thee to refrain,
Hillary sets thee free again,
Septuagesima bids thee stay,
Six days from Easter says thou may,
Ascension pleads thy chastity,
But thou may’st wed at Trinity.

The feast of St Hilary falls on 13th January, the Octave of the Epiphany, marking the end of the Christmas season. Septuagesima Sunday fell 70 days before Easter (the third Sunday before Lent) and Trinity, of course, is the first Sunday after Pentecost)

and Cacciaguida (who already gave me permission):

…On the pragmatic/spiritual point: it’s traditional ascetic teaching that a mortification undertaken as such, for God, has somewhat greater spiritual value than one encountered, either passively (a bumped head, a stubbed toe) or in the course of a legitimate secular pursuit (we write the article when we’d rather blog or watch a movie, etc.). But the latter can be offered up as well, so I can’t see that the difference is as big a deal as your correspondent makes it.