Fasting and Its Spirituality
Fasting and Its Spirituality
On the occasion of the Nativity Fast, I would like to speak to you today about fasting and its spirituality.
Fasting is the first commandment that was given to humanity. For the Lord commanded man to abstain from eating a certain kind of food. What did this command mean?
It meant that man should control his body, not giving it complete freedom to do whatever it wants or eat whatever it wants.
This also meant that man should rise above the level of the body, so that the desires of the body would not lead him in his actions, nor would he surrender to the body in what it craves. Thus, the period of fasting is a non-carnal period.
And if the food of the body is from matter, then man during the period of fasting does not only rise above the level of the body, but also rises above the level of matter.
This means that in fasting, man is neither materialistic nor carnal, but his body is under his authority, and he is not under the authority of the body. In this way, he gives his spirit the opportunity to be released from the domination of the body.
And since fasting is the first commandment given to man, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ began His service on earth with fasting. The first man submitted to the authority of the body by eating from the forbidden tree, so the Lord corrected the condition of humanity by subjecting the body and even preventing it from permitted food. And when the devil asked Him to turn stones into bread, He answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Thus He showed that man is not merely a body that lives by bread, but has a spirit that lives by the word of God.
By this, He transferred the discussion to the spiritual condition of man. On many other occasions, the Lord spoke about the spiritual food of man.
He said, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life,” and He spoke to us about the living bread, the bread which came down from heaven, in order to direct our thinking toward a spiritual direction. And He said about Himself, “I have food to eat of which you do not know… My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.”
We ask then: was Christ fasting on the mountain, or was He being nourished?
The answer is that He was fasting in the body and being nourished in the spirit.
Fasting has deep roots in the human soul, to the extent that it exists in all religions. Follow fasting, for example, among the Hindus, among the Buddhists, and among practitioners of yoga. But Christian fasting is distinguished by the fact that it is not limited to restraining the body, but rather it includes deep spiritual nourishment.
It is a rising above the bodily level, and a rising above the material level, and it is giving the spirit its nourishment, and caring for the food that is for eternal life.
Therefore, all the Fathers warn us of the harms of gluttony, the harms of overeating, and the harms of excessive concern with food. For many people, their primary concern is “a piece of bread.” For its sake they toil, struggle, compete, and commit mistakes. And the Paradise of the Fathers says, “The belly is the root of all ailments.” Many people also become excessively creative in caring for food, its appearance, attractiveness, and appetite, in an interest that goes beyond limits. Amid all this concern, Scripture commands us to rise above the level of food and to care for another food that we do not know.
What then are the benefits of fasting?
The first thing is that a person begins to feel asceticism: asceticism in food, in drink, in the body, in pleasure, in delight, in health, and in strength. Along with asceticism, he feels that his body becomes light and his spirit soars. But with eating, a person feels heaviness in the body.
This heaviness in the body has harms in spiritual life:
If a person prays with a full stomach, his prayer becomes lukewarm. It is perhaps one of the well-known observations that many people pray before eating and do not pray after it. A hungry person remembers God more than a full one. Often after dinner, a person’s head becomes heavy and he feels a desire to sleep.
The virtue of fasting always goes hand in hand with the virtue of prayer and the virtue of vigilance. One who eats much cannot be strong in prayer; his body may become heavy and he loves to sleep. Thus, the fasting Fathers had a marvelous ability for vigilance, and if they kept vigil, they became active in prayer.
Fasting also agrees with prostrations. Therefore, the rule of prostrations is that they go along with days of abstinent fasting. On a day when abstinence is not permitted, prostrations are not permitted. Spiritually, prostrations become sweet with fasting. Physically, a person who practices prostrations with a full stomach becomes tired. Therefore, the most suitable times for them are early morning or very late at night.
The fasting person has a light body and can bow and rise easily without becoming tired. His bodily powers are not occupied with processes of digestion and assimilation, so he is able to practice prostrations.
Likewise in prayers, the deepest prayers of a person are when he is fasting.
Therefore, you find that the prayers of Holy Week have their marvelous strength and influence. Even in recording hymns, there is a great difference between recording a Paschal hymn during the same Paschal Week while you are fasting, your body exhausted and weak, your voice faint, and recording the same hymn on any other day of the year while you are not fasting.
Also during fasting, the soul of a person becomes contrite. The weakness of the body helps in contrition; a person is broken in his body, and thus broken in spirit. There is a great difference between a person who speaks to God while he is strong, with a full body, his loud voice shaking the mountain, and another person who speaks to God while his voice comes out with difficulty because of extreme weakness.
For this reason also, the liturgies that are prayed in the afternoon are more spiritual and deeper than the liturgies that are held in the morning. In general, the Church does not allow us to attend the liturgy unless we are fasting, for at least nine hours. I do not know how a person can feel the sweetness of the liturgy if he attends it while not fasting. Thus also in the hymns of the Church, its praises, and its distribution, you hear the phrase “fasting and prayer.” The two are always together.
One prayer that you pray while fasting is better than a hundred prayers that you perform while your stomach is full of food.
One prayer that you pray while hungry and exhausted, even if you cannot stand on your feet because of weakness, is far better than a hundred prayers from you while you are strong, praying with a loud and full voice.
Fasting crushes the body, so the spirit is crushed. For the feeling of weakness gives a person an opportunity to resort to God, the source of strength. Therefore, the Fathers were concerned that a person should fast until he becomes hungry.
It was said of the Lord Jesus Christ that He “afterward was hungry” (Matthew 4:2). And it was said of the Apostle Peter in his fasting that he “became very hungry and wanted to eat” (Acts 10:10). Believe me, the deepest aspect of fasting physically is hunger. There are people who fast without reaching the point of hunger. And if they feel it, they do not continue in it, but immediately eat. But he who continues in hunger, becomes accustomed to it, and benefits from it, benefits spiritually. And one who fasts much does not feel hunger quickly.
For the true faster, food loses its value. He becomes accustomed not to eat every time he sees food in front of him. Food loses its importance.
Another benefit of fasting is that when a person begins fasting, he feels that he has entered a holy period that requires a special kind of life. Just as a person feels on the day of Communion that it is an extraordinary day. God has arranged these holy periods for us in order to revive us and to remind us of the ideal life that we should walk in. Therefore, a person feels that the sin he commits during fasting is more dangerous and involves greater responsibility.
Fasting also goes along with retreat and with silence. The Prophet Joel said, “Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.” Fasting is fitting with retreat for the sake of devotion to worship, and retreat goes along with fasting. Likewise, if a person fasts and becomes very hungry, he becomes silent, because speaking exhausts him physically and spiritually. And if he becomes silent, he retreats, because speech distracts him from spiritual work.
Fasting in the Church precedes every spiritual grace. Therefore, it precedes Communion and all feasts. It also precedes service, as a person humbles himself through it before God to receive a grace that helps him in service, and also to reach a spiritual state suitable for service.
The Lord Jesus Christ fasted before His service. And the apostles, “As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” New priests also fast before beginning their service.
Most of the requests that we ask of God are accompanied by fasting, humbling ourselves before God so that He may respond, just as the people of Nineveh humbled themselves before God with fasting to receive forgiveness, and just as David fasted and prayed for his sick son, and just as Esther and all the people fasted… and so did all people.
But the more a person advances in his spiritual life, fasting becomes for him a constant training throughout his entire life that gives him spiritual comfort, to the extent that he becomes tired if he breaks his fast.
Fasting becomes his spiritual way of life, in which he lives with a light body. Therefore, enter fasting not as a period of fatigue, torture, and pressure, but as a period of spiritual activity that you wish would continue.
Those who think of reducing the fasts think in a bodily, non-spiritual way. Even from a bodily point of view, fasting is beneficial to the body.
Daniel and his companions, when they fasted, “their appearance appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king’s delicacies” (Daniel 1:15). Many people fast for the sake of the beauty of their bodies. Others fast to lift the burden that exhausts their hearts. All of these fast for the sake of the body—its health and beauty. Should you not then fast for the sake of the spirit?
Fast for God, before the world forces you to fast for its sake…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Fifth Year – Issue No. 10 – December 7, 1974
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