On Fasting and Abstinence
Because we did not keep the fast, we were driven out of paradise. Let us fast, then, so that we may return.
Fasting of the body is food for the soul.
Beware of defining fasting as mere abstinence from food. Those who abstain from food but live unseemly lives are like the devil, who, true, eats nothing, yet does not give up sin.
The restrictions in which the rule of fasting places our body are nothing compared with the spiritual benefit that fasting can bring us.
It is written in the law that God commanded the children of Israel to offer to God a tenth of their possessions. And the apostles judged and decided that every Christian should offer a tenth of the years of his life — in the form of holy Great Lent. God gave us these holy days so that whoever strives, and with attention and love of humility takes care of his soul and repents, may be forgiven all the sins he has committed in the whole year. Abba Dorotheus
Try to be the master of food and drink, not their slave.
He who does not eat meat but takes other food to excess, drinks wine without measure and fattens his flesh — his fasting is useless.
As the flower is the beginning of the fruit, so fasting is the beginning of ascetic labour.
He who masters his belly weakens passion; he who is mastered by food strengthens evil desire.
The tradition of fasting is as old as the world itself. The first commandment the Lord gave to man was a commandment about fasting.
Nothing tempers the soul like abstinence from food. Abba Poemen
Too much food makes the body like an overloaded ship, which goes to the bottom at even the slightest movement of the waves. Abba Leontius
Subdue your stomach before it subdues you.
Stop eating while you still want a little more.
Give the body as much food as it needs, and if you eat three times a day it will not harm you.
Do not fret over bodily fasting: it is nothing without spiritual fasting.
Relaxing the fast according to the canons of the Church is allowed for the infirm, and this is just, because infirmity in itself implies that very state (that is, the curbing of the senses and the inactivity of the fleshly passions) for the attainment of which fasting is needed. It follows that one who is infirm does not need to subdue the flesh by fasting, but to strengthen the weak body with food and treatment, so that it does not become entirely unfit to serve the soul.
No gluttonous and heavy animal can run as fast as the deer, which eats little: likewise one who loves the pleasures of the palate cannot be as active and as fond of ascetic labour as one who fasts.
The more wood, the stronger the fire. The more food, the fiercer the passion. Abba Leontius
Remember that Adam in paradise was no less perfect than you. He imagined that one could live without fasting — and what came of it? Lot lived in the midst of Sodom and was renowned for his virtues. But outside Sodom he stopped fasting — and what happened. Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson
Fasting and prayer are inseparable.
The fast of repentance has come, the day of judgement has arrived. Not the judgement that is called the Dread Judgement, followed by hell and “gnashing of teeth”… This is a judgement in which the guilty one himself is his own examiner and judge. So here there will be no place for “gnashing of teeth” and hell. Here all that is needed is that a man should count up his sins and say: I repent. And since this is so, every person should reflect on his past life to sort out his sins and his good deeds, if he wishes to keep the Christian rule and not let the time of repentance go to waste.
