I HAVE BROUGHT FASTING
INTO MY SOUL
From a meditation by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
◊◊◊
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…