July 15, 2008
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The Reason For Fasting
I came across this meditation about a month ago and said that I would post it sometime. St. Augustine is one of my favorites, because he was a serious sinner and he knew it. But when the chips were down he gave up his sinful life and worked hard for the kingdom of God. He was also honest about his sinfulness and his struggle to be holy. Anyway here it is.
You mustn’t regard fasting as an unimportant or superfluous matter. Please don’t think to yourself when perhaps you are fasting because it is the Church’s custom, don’t say to yourself, or listen to the suggestions of the tempter inside you saying, “What are you doing, you and your fasting? You’re cheating your soul, you’re not giving it what it takes delight in. You’re inflicting punishment on yourself, you have turned into your own torturer and executioner. So does your torturing yourself please God? That means he’s cruel, if he enjoys your being punished.”
Answer this sort of tempter like this: “Yes, I do hurt myself, so that he may spare me; I do impose my own punishment on myself, so that he may come to my assistance, that I may please his eyes, that I may charm his goodness. I mean, the victim too is hurt, in order to be laid on the altar. In this way my flesh will exert less pressure on my mind.” And to someone of this sort trying to dissuade you with bad arguments, reply with this comparison: “Suppose you were going to ride a horse, and it looked as if it might throw you with its friskiness, wouldn’t you make sure of having a safe journey, by cutting the rations of the unruly beast, and taming it with hunger, since you couldn’t curb it with the reins? My flesh is my mount. On my journey to Jerusalem it frequently runs away with me, and tries to make me lose my way, and my way is Christ; so as it plays up like that, shouldn’t I restrain it with fasting?”
Saint Augustine
This meditation really struck me and made me wonder if I don’t fast enough to control my flesh. Would it make it easier to dwell on Christ and his teachings and promptings. I have a new tool in my arsenal against Satan.
Comments (5)
Great thing to ponder. Thank you for sharing.
I echo standingonthepromises. I’ll have to save this.
Saint Augustine was one smart cookie.
I mean that in the most respectful way imaginable. He is right about the fasting, with one exception. You don’t tame a horse by starving him. That ruin’s the horse’s strength and makes him good for nothing. Instead you tame a horse by mastering him, by making him realize who is master. In this way the horse retains all his original strength, but it is harnessed to a nobler cause than his own pleasure.
A lot of those early fathers of the church took fasting a bit too far, sometimes, I think.
@P_Obrien - You are right on both counts. Still his words are worth contemplating and putting into some sort of action. I think fasting is the way to go for more than the taming the body thing. It will also help tame my mind and will. (I hope!!!!!)
Thanks for your ministry here! We won’t know this side of
the Kingdom how many hearts you are touching! God bless… ~ Pete “Then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream
would have gone over our soul; then the swollen waters would have gone over our
soul. Blessed be the Lord…” Psalm 124:4-6