Homily on Fasting

1Fasting according to God is the root and foundation of the pious, when it is carried out with reverence, holy prayers, and almsgiving. For God does not desire abstinence from bread and water, but abstinence from evil deeds. “For it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth—that defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11). Let us fast, beloved, a fast that befits God, about which the Lord says: “But you, when you fast, anoint your head” with good works and almsgiving, “and wash your face,” removing every stain of sin. There is a blameworthy fast, and there is a praiseworthy fast. Many who fasted committed murders, and many who fasted saved others.

The Ninevites fasted and were saved, and through fasting they changed the wrath of God. And fasting blocked the sentence that had been pronounced against them. For the prophet says: “Yet three days, and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). He did not say, “After three days, Nineveh will be overthrown.” For if he had said, “After three days,” it would have been overthrown. But he said, “Yet three days,” showing this: “For so long I bore with you, and you did not repent. Yet for three days I bear with you, and if you do not repent within the three days, then the city will be overthrown.” And for so long they did not repent, except through the three days—that is, through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Jews fasted and took counsel to kill the apostle Paul. Jezebel proclaimed a fast and killed Naboth and took the poor man's vineyard. A fast and murder—what kind of fast is that? Daniel fasted when he was thrown into the lions' den. For when he was thrown into the den, he cried out to Christ, saying: “Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my prayer” (Psalm 129:1-2 [130:1-2]). And seeing the lions on his right and on his left, again he cried out, saying: “Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses you” (Psalm 73:19 [74:19]). See that the Lord does not abandon those who hope in him. The earthly king sealed the den, but the heavenly King sealed

2the mouths of the lions. The fire fasted in the furnace and did not use its fellow servants for food, but having fasted it leaped out of the furnace, yielding to the three because of the fourth (Daniel 3:25).

The sea monster fasted in the sea when it received Jonah into the chambers of its belly. For holding the prophet as a deposit, it displayed the sign of fasting. Becoming a ship for the shipwrecked man, it carried the stranger through sea and depth and great fear, and so that it might not destroy the stranger in the chambers of its belly, it restored the deposit intact, handing it over to the master who had entrusted it (Jonah 2:1-10).

David fasted, and through fasting and repentance God forgave him the sin concerning Uriah's wife (2 Samuel 12:13). Elijah fasted forty days and received the keys of the heavens, and when he wished he withheld the rain, and when he wished he brought it through fastings and prayers (1 Kings 17:1; 18:45).

Our Savior fasted forty days and put the devil to shame—he who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth (Matthew 4:2; 1 Peter 2:22). He fasted to give us a pattern, that through fastings we are able to obtain propitiation of sins.

Let us fast, then, beloved, a pure fast, about which the apostle James says: “Pure religion is this: to visit brothers in their affliction, to keep themselves unstained from the world” (James 1:27). Joshua son of Nun fasted and commanded the sun and the moon (Joshua 10:12-13).

The apostles, having nothing on earth, received authority to bind and to loose, and what was said is fulfilled in them: “as having nothing and possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10). For Peter, it says, and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour to pray. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was sitting there, who had never walked. He was expecting to receive something from the apostles (Acts 3:1-3).

3Peter answered him, “What you expect to receive, I do not have; but what you do not expect to receive, I do have. You expect to receive silver; I provide you with health. For health of body is better than immeasurable wealth. I will tell you the truth: ‘Silver and gold I do not have.’ For Christ handed over to us, saying, ‘Do not acquire gold or silver or copper.’ And he gave us authority, saying, ‘Cast out demons, heal the sick, cleanse lepers. Freely you received, freely give.’ In the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk.” And taking hold of his right hand, he raised him up. The servant takes hold and raises; the master heals by a word. For a servant is not above his lord.

But now, with clinics being opened throughout the inhabited world, today I see one physician standing over them all: Christ. O what a new wonder! Different diseases, in different places of the clinics, are healed by one physician. One person, afflicted elsewhere by the wound of sin, comes forward, receives from fasting a plaster of healing, and departs. Another, reeking with the decay of fornication, from Christ, the physician of souls and bodies, receives through fasting a medicine for the stench. Another, burning with the fever of love of money, obtains from fasting herbs that cool the disease.

Fasting knows how to make barren women pregnant quickly, to turn the unfruitful womb into a fruitful field, and to give prophets as sons as the reward of abstinence from food. For what are we taught by the divine Scripture? “And Hannah was despondent,” it says, “and she wept and did not eat.” But fasting provided the prophet Samuel to the barren woman. You have seen the gifts of fasting.

4You have seen what fruits it produces for those who ask of it: how it dries up the springs of fornication, opens wombs that barrenness had dried shut, cuts out the thorns of sin that grow from our thoughts, and no longer allows the fruits of impiety to appear. Fasting according to God can do all this, and more: it makes the harsh gentle, turns the pitiless toward compassion, and softens the hard metal of the unyielding as it works bronze.

This fasting is useful not only for sinners but also, at the right time, for the righteous, as we have already shown. Moses fasted forty days and forty nights, entered that darkness, and saw God as has happened to no one among human beings, according to the testimony of God himself about him, saying: “If there is a prophet among you who belongs to the Lord, I will make myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; mouth to mouth, face to face, as one speaks to his own friend” (Numbers 12:6-8). Fasting brought this extraordinary sight to the prophet as a gift, changed the face of the one who fasted into a kind of divine lightning-flash of unapproachable light, and gave the prophet tablets written by the finger of God.

Let us therefore approach fasting with a bright face. Let us greet it with joyful souls, and let us not abstain from foods while holding fast to sins. Let us not show ourselves humble in appearance before people while appearing arrogant in soul before the Master. Let us not give to the poor while robbing others. Let us not flatter God with words while slaughtering our brothers and sisters in deed, remembering always the apostle saying: “Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). But fasting from all evils along with foods, let us say to him: “You have mercy on all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of human beings for repentance” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:23). For to you belongs all glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.