FASTING

I'm going to try to insert some of St. Francis de Sales' thoughts this year during this Holy season of Lent. I was going to last year, but I got side-tracked somehow. Anyway, here are some thoughts on fasting, both the interior and exterior of the body. This is an abridged version by me from St. Francis' 'Sermons for Lent'
, given in the year 1622.



First of all, he quotes St. Bernard:

"...fasting was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ as as remedy for our mouth, for our gourmandizing and for our gluttony. Since sin entered the world through the mouth, the mouth must do penance by being deprived of foods prohibited and forbidden by the Church, abstaining from them for the space of forty days." But this glorious adds that, "...as it is not our mouth alone which has sinned, but also all our other senses, our fast must be general and entire, that is, all the members of our body must fast. For if we have offended God through the eyes, through the ears, through the tongue, and through our other senses, why should we not make them fast, but also the soul's powers and passions--yes, even the understanding, the memory, and the will, since we have sinned through both body and spirit."

St. Francis again: "This is all that I tell you regarding fasting and what must be observed in order to fast well. The first ting is that your fast should be entire and universal; that is, that you should make all the members of your body and the powers of your soul fast: keeping your eyes lowered, or at least lower than ordinarily; keeping better silence, or at least keeping it more punctually than is usual; mortifying the hearing and the tongue so that you will no longer hear or speak of anything vain or useless; the understanding, in order to consider only holy and pious subjects; the memory, in filling it with the remembrance of bitter and sorrowful things and avoiding joyous and gracious thoughts; keeping your will in check and your spirit at the foot of the Crucifix with some holy and sorrowful thought. If you do that, your fast will be universal, interior and exterior, for you will mortify both your body and your spirit. The second condition is that you do not observe your fast or perform your for the eyes of others. And, the third is that you do all your actions, and consequently your fasting, to please God alone, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever."

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.