One Who Resolves to Enter the Path of a Good Life Should Keep a Fast. Guidance on How to Fast Properly. Conduct in Church During the Fast

Glory to You, O Lord! Lent has arrived. And you have given me pleasure by informing me that you have resolved to begin your fast-and-communion observance as soon as possible. And do not change your intention. Some do observe it during Holy Week, but do not put it off until then. Those who observe it during Holy Week are either those who have already observed it in the preceding weeks and desire to receive Communion a second time, or those compelled by some necessity, or those who wish to get through the labors of the fast observance quickly—since one need work only for three short days. Of you, only the first case would apply.

May the Lord bless you to observe it as it should be done. Everything you have planned is indeed what every devout observer should do. To fast, to attend church, to withdraw into solitude, to read, to reflect, to attend to one’s inner self—all of this is necessary. But all these activities must be directed toward one goal: worthy reception of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. To receive worthily, the soul must be cleansed through repentance. In order to perform repentance as it should be—with sincere contrition and a firm resolve not to offend the Lord further—all the other labors of the fast observance are appointed: attendance at church, private prayer, fasting, and everything else.

The first step in the work of repentance is to enter into oneself. What prevents us from entering into ourselves and attending to our inner life are the cares and concerns of daily life and the ceaseless wandering of thoughts across the world. Therefore, the person observing the fast-period suspends, as much as is possible for each person, his or her activities and, instead of going about on business, stays at home. This cutting off of busy activities is a matter of the utmost importance in the fast observance. Whoever fails to do this will certainly observe the fast carelessly. So you too must do the same. However small your activities may be, they exist and they distract. Approach the fast observance then, setting all else aside.

Suppose you have set everything aside and sat down in your little room. What then is to be done there? One can sit alone to no purpose as well. One must take up occupations suited to the fast observance. What are these? Prayer, reading, and meditation.

This prayer is in addition to that at church—church prayer is already understood of itself. How to pray in church, you surely know. Take this to heart, however! Go to church willingly, as to one’s own Father’s house, without reluctance or boredom. Go to church not merely to stand through the service, but to pray from the soul—to pray with warmth of heart, with an outpouring before the Lord of feelings of contrition, humility, and reverent awe, and with the lifting up of earnest petitions for your most pressing spiritual needs. To succeed in this, you must think it through beforehand and, having come to church, strive toward it. Do not count as empty any standing through the service during which the heart was warmed and called out warmly to God—this is the main thing. One must also listen to the service and follow it in thought and feeling. The variety, all directed toward one aim, will, without being distracting, keep the attention pleasantly in a nourishing and edifying tension. Pay close attention to what is sung and read, especially the litanies, for they are a concise expression of all our needs, with petition for which we may approach God without shame.

But thoughts usually wander. This comes from a lack of prayerful feeling. Do this with them, however: the moment you notice that your thoughts have left the church, bring them back, and never allow yourself to daydream or let your thoughts wander deliberately—now, during the fast observance, and at every other time as well. When thoughts wander without your noticing, the fault is small; but when you deliberately let your mind roam here and there while standing in church, that is already a sin. The Lord is in the midst of those who are in the church. Whoever stands here thinking not of the Lord but daydreaming is like someone who, having come before a king to petition him for something, begins to make faces and fidget in the royal presence, paying no attention to the king. To avoid all wandering of thoughts, even with all your effort, may perhaps be beyond you, but to refrain from deliberately daydreaming is both possible and obligatory. Two rules apply to the wandering of thoughts: first, the moment you notice this wandering, bring your thoughts back; and second, do not permit yourself to let your mind wander deliberately.

The remedy against wandering thoughts is attentiveness of mind—attention to the fact that the Lord is before us and we are before Him. The whole mind must be anchored in this thought, and one must not allow it to depart from this. Attention is fastened to the Lord by the fear of God and by reverence. From these comes warmth of heart, which in turn draws the attention back to the one Lord. Take the trouble to stir the heart—and you will see for yourself how it binds the thoughts. One must compel oneself. Without labor and mental effort you will attain nothing spiritual. Prostrations greatly help in the warming of the heart—make them often, both waist-deep and full to the earth.

May the Lord grant you to taste the sweetness of being in church, so that you long to be there as one longs to enter a warm room from the cold. In the fast observance, the chief agent of the work for which one observes it is right and worthy presence in church. All other activities are aids and supports to it. But of those—until next time.