Approaching Continuous Fasting Preparation

Fasting preparation is practiced periodically, but the spirit of fasting preparation must be raised to one that acts continuously, and for this, certain exercises are needed that contribute to its becoming rooted.

Since fasting preparation contains three sanctifying deeds: fasting, confession, and communion, these three must be elevated to continuous practice or possible frequency. To do this, one must:

a) Regarding fasting

Observe all the great fasts or spend the time of fasts in fasting – that is, in more than mere abstinence – so that the flesh itself feels deprivation, want, and pain. For fasting preparation, a certain number of days of fasting is appointed, when worldly deeds are abandoned and everything is turned exclusively to cleansing the conscience; during fasting, worldly deeds continue in the same order, but fasting is reduced and other occupations are arranged according to what is possible. The affliction of the flesh alone, coupled with the cessation of all its comforts, as befits a time of lamentation, sometimes lightens the spirit, sometimes attracts God’s mercy. What a powerful means to spiritualization this is!

Observance of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. This from time to time powerfully reminds a person that he is not free but in servitude, under oppression; it restrains sensual excess, sobers him and grants vigor; it is like a brief reining-in of a wild horse with bridle and reins.

And beyond that, voluntary fasting on other days, especially on Monday, as is customary. Some refuse themselves certain foods and constantly eat fasting food; others fast every other day, and so forth. There are different kinds of fasting, and all are beneficial and are recommended according to one’s strength and zeal.

b) Regarding confession

Every sin that weighs on the conscience should be hastened to be cleansed by repentance, without waiting for a appointed time of fasting preparation. It is good not to keep it on the soul for a day, and still better not even an hour, for sin drives away grace, takes away boldness and prayer, hardens and cools the more the longer it remains. But once cast out through repentance, it leaves the soul-softening dew of tears.

Every day, going to sleep, make a private confession before the Lord, in which all that is sinful – in thoughts, desires, feelings, and passionate movements – as well as all that is unclean in righteous deeds, is opened to God in a sense of repentance, as something that, though seemingly against the will, is nonetheless in us and makes us unclean and worthless before God and in our own sense of purity and perfection. As you lie down to sleep, depart as if to the other world; confession prepares for this. During sleep, what was gathered during the day becomes part of our nature – it must be cleansed and all that is worthless cast out with contrition; then everything is pure afterward.

To make a confession every moment – that is, every thought, every desire, feeling, and corrupt or unclean movement, as soon as it is perceived, is to be confessed to the all-seeing God with contrition of spirit, and to ask for forgiveness and strength to avoid it in future; likewise to be cleansed in that very moment from the filth. This practice is most saving. It is like wiping one’s eyes while walking into dust; it requires strict attention of the heart. But one already gathered is always diligent and zealous. On the contrary, by leaving thoughts and desires uncast-out with contrition and repentance, a wound is left in the heart. And how many unnoticed wounds, how many assaults! No wonder, after this, coldness and falling. One thought easily begets a desire for another, desire for desire begets consent, and then internal adultery and falling. But one who is ever repenting cleanses himself continually and clears the path.

To have disclosure – that is, to open every doubt, confusion, or new understanding to another who is like-minded or to one’s spiritual father, so that he may resolve and determine its worth and pronounce judgment. By this, stagnation and deviation are avoided, the habit of judicious thinking is acquired, and consequently, time that is sometimes wasted on empty fantasizing is preserved. And chiefly, there is unceasing safety, firmness of conviction that is unshakeable, along with which comes firmness of will and constancy of action.

By all these deeds, confession truly becomes continuous. The spirit is held in contrition, in tenderness of heart, in self-humiliation, in prayerful prostration – therefore it lives. This of all practices is the most fitting for preserving the spirit of zeal, the heat of devotion, so that for some, all their practice, for themselves and for others, was confined to one thing: repent every moment and weep over your sins.

c) Regarding communion

Be present, insofar as possible, at the Liturgy more frequently, and during its celebration, stand in firm and luminous faith in the sacrifice of God being performed at that moment. The Mystery of Body and Blood is divine food for Christians and is a sacrifice. Not everyone communes at the Liturgy and not always, but the sacrifice is offered by all and for all. All therefore must participate in it. They participate through faith, painful contrition for sins, self-humbled prostration before the Lord who sacrifices Himself like a lamb for the life of the world. The very living contemplation of this Mystery powerfully quickens and stirs up the spirit. And faith and contrition always bring the cleansing of sins, and often even a hidden touching of the Lord to the Christian’s heart, consoling it and quickening it, as it were, like spiritual communion.

Such a touching is sweeter than honey and honeycomb and mightier than all spiritual strengthening means. But one must remember that it is entirely a gift of God. When, to whom, and how to bestow it depends on the Lord Himself. A Christian must receive it with reverence and joy and rejoice if it is given, but not strain toward it, not devise means to attain it, and even better, not trust whether it happens or whether it is what happens. This is to avoid pride and to prevent spiritual delusion.

If you cannot be in the temple, do not let an hour of the sacred and divine sacrifice pass without sighing and turning to God; if possible, stand in prayer and make a few prostrations. Something terrible in nature causes all creation to tremble: thunder, for example, an earthquake, a storm. At the moment of the divine sacrifice in the temple, a deed is accomplished most terrible and greatest on earth and in heaven, but is accomplished invisibly, spiritually, before the face of the infinite God the Trinity, before the holy Angels, before all the company of the Heavenly Church, before the eye of faith of all those struggling and living on earth – invisibly nevertheless, yet truly. Therefore, the believer should not pass these moments without attention. But when they are remembered, the spirit is warmed by this very remembrance and is caught up to God, and thereby grace is drawn down.

Thus, the practices of fasting preparation can approach continuity, so that together with inner work, in constant strain and strength, they maintain the heat of zeal and the seeking spirit, and with its help, all bodily and soul practices are transformed into saving means for the growth and strengthening of our inner self.

Such is the general order of guiding rules. Founded on the essence of life, it is essentially necessary for everyone who seeks the Lord. But here only the beginnings, the spirit, and the force of the rules are indicated: for example, regarding the body – displeasing the flesh in all the body’s functions; or regarding external life – withdrawal from all that is saturated with the spirit of passions, commitment of the soul in all its powers, and conduct under the influence of gracious means. These are the essential points of ascetic activity. As for the application of these beginnings, according to the diverse condition of persons, it must be diverse, and no single rule can be laid down in this case. For example, to heal the mind, it is necessary to impress Divine truths upon it, according to the understanding of the Holy Church. This can be done through reading, listening, and conversation and can be taken from the Word of God, the teachings of the Fathers, the lives of the saints, and sermons. The spiritual father must see which method is more fitting for each person and how it can be fulfilled. As each person is able, only do it. Therefore, individual asceticism appears outwardly in infinitely diverse forms. One must only keep this in mind: that spiritual father is the destroyer of the soul and the murderer who quenches the spirit of zeal by various indulgences and permissions, or who lulls to sleep and numbs those who are in coldness, for there is only one path – the narrow and sorrowful one.

The most complete and successful fulfillment of all this belongs to monasticism. This is a way of life that realizes the demands of asceticism in the best, purest, and most perfect form, precisely in its spirit. It is arduous and penitential; it always consists of those who guide and those who are guided; it is outwardly separated from the world and bound in bodily needs; it presents the greatest scope for the application of practices, readings, services, prayer, and obedience; it is especially adapted for the active rooting out of passions both in the general order – through poverty, strictness, unrest, self-forgetting – and in the particular – under a guide. And so the attentive monk quickly develops an inner yearning toward God, because of the most decisive self-sacrifice and detachment from all, because of the greater possibility of remaining within himself and because of the nourishment of the spirit by prayer. Therefore, the attentive one quickly ascends here to silence, to the solitude of the mind, and departs to rest – into the desert or into enclosure.