Discover how Christian fasting expresses love, sacrifice, and devotion to Christ through the teachings of the Church.
Let us suppose that a father has two children. One of them does whatever he likes, without asking himself whether what he does is pleasing to his father. The other is careful. He does everything he can to make his father happy. He is even willing to make sacrifices out of love and respect for his father’s sacred person.
Now, as a father, he certainly loves both his children, but he loves much more, incomparably more, the child who makes sacrifices for him, especially when the father has not even asked him to do so.
Something similar applies to the Christian who fasts. In other words, when, for the sake of God, he abstains from meat, cheese, eggs, fish, and so on, when he makes this sacrifice, he “compels” God to look upon him with favor. He places his own “small” cross beside the great Cross of Christ.
Consider that when a priest practices abstinence and fasting before the Divine Liturgy, his prayers and supplications on behalf of the people become more acceptable to God. “So that they may be able to obtain from God what they ask of Him” (Canon XIII of the Quinisext Council).
The Church honors the Holy Martyrs because they suffered for Christ. Their suffering, their martyrdom, is the finest offering that the Church presents to Christ. A farmer who has worked hard longs to taste, for example, the first grapes produced by his labor, grapes he has not tasted since the previous year. In the same way, the Church offers the martyrs to Christ as the first fruits, as her most precious gift. “As the first fruits of nature, the world offers to You, O Lord, the holy martyrs who bore witness to You” (Kontakion of the Feast of All Saints).
The martyrs are considered the Church’s finest adornment. “Your Church, O Christ God, is adorned with the blood of Your martyrs throughout the world, as with purple and fine linen” (Apolytikion of the Feast of All Saints).
Thus, because fasting involves deprivation, sacrifice, and suffering for the sake of the Lord, the Lord is pleased when we fast.
The Apostle Paul, knowing through the Holy Spirit that the Lord is pleased when we offer our bodies as a sacrifice for the sake of Christ, wrote to the faithful in Christ: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable…”
And Saint John exhorts us: “Let us, therefore, train ourselves daily through fasting, hardship, simple and modest food, and simple meals, avoiding luxury in every aspect of our lives, for otherwise it is impossible to please God” (Homily III, On Lazarus and the Rich Man, P.G. 48:1005).
And one more “detail.” Fasting does not merely mean abstaining from certain foods. Above all, it means refraining from “devouring” our neighbor. Otherwise, we are not pleasing to the Lord, as the Prophet Isaiah teaches (Isaiah 58:3–7).
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? It’s Friday, and you’ve put oil in the food!” a husband rebuked his wife. Yet this very same man had been lying in wait in the forest, shotgun in hand, ready to kill a fellow villager.
Next in the series: Why Is the Devil Afraid of Fasting?
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