Vigils Reading

I HAVE BROUGHT FASTING

INTO MY SOUL

From a meditation by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

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With fasting I gladden my hope in You, my Lord, Who are to come again.

Fasting hastens my preparation for Your coming, the sole expectation of my days

and nights. Fasting makes my body thinner, so that what remains can more easily

shine with the spirit…

But truly, abstaining from food will not save me. Even if I were to eat only

the sand from the lake, You would not come to me, unless the fasting penetrated

deeper into my soul.

I have come to know through my prayer, that bodily fasting is more a symbol

of true fasting, very beneficial for someone who has only just begun to hope in You,

and nevertheless very difficult for someone who merely practices it.

Therefore I have brought fasting into my soul to purge her of many impudent

fiancés and to prepare her for You like a virgin. And I have brought fasting into my

mind, to expel from it all daydreams about worldly matters and to demolish all the

air castles, fabricated from those daydreams…to receive Your Wisdom.

And I have brought fasting into my heart, so that by means of it my heart

might quell all passions and worldly selfishness…so that heavenly peace might

ineffably reign over my heart, when Your stormy Spirit encounters it.

I prescribe fasting for my tongue, to break itself of the habit of idle chatter

and to speak reservedly only those words that clear the way for You to come.

And I have imposed fasting on my worries so that it may blow them all away

before itself like the wind that blows away the mist, lest they stand like dense fog

between me and You, and lest they turn my gaze back to the world.

And fasting has brought into my soul tranquility in the face of uncreated and

created realms, and humility towards men and creatures. And it has instilled in me

courage, the likes of which I never knew when I was armed with every sort of

worldly weapon. What was my hope before I began to fast except merely another

story told by others, which passed from mouth to mouth? The story told by others

about salvation through prayer and fasting became my own.

False fasting accompanies false hope, just as no fasting accompanies

But just as a wheel follows behind a wheel, so true fasting follows

hopelessness. true hope…