Lent: Fasting, Abstinence, and Prayer

Our tradition of fasting, abstinence and prayer for a definite season goes back to the example of Our Lord Himself, who fasted for forty days in the wilderness. He prophesied that when He was taken away from us, we would fast (Luke 5:35). Those days have come, but He has left us this holy tradition by which we can imitate, even in a small way, His example.
Fasting is restricting our intake of food and drink, either completely or in part. But it does not stand alone from prayer, the search for holiness, and leading a good life. Rather, it gives more meaning, more power to these.
Abstinence, for us, is refraining from eating meat and dairy, that is, exercising will- power to decide what I will and will not eat.
We fast to do penance for our sins, to acquire will-power (to do what is good and avoid what is evil), to link or thoughts and emotions to a good and virtuous life, to make our religion a part of our every-day life, and to help us see ourselves and how attached we are to our bellies, and to certain types of food. The purpose of fasting is to grow in holiness.
Whenever we fast, we should remember that we seek holiness. Then, whether we are feeling hungry, desiring food or a drink which we cannot have, preparing our food, or even just thinking about our fast, we should make an intentional connection with the fast.
If we use the fast, and everything which follows from it, to remind us that we fast in order to seek holiness, then we shall grow in holiness, because food and drink are so fundamental to our lives that we will have endless reminders.

Fasting helps us come to holiness because it is a form of penance, and it develops strength of will and self-understanding. But holiness never comes automatically. We need a complete Christian discipline for life; and fasting is an important part of that. Fasting can have no supernatural results unless it is undertaken in a spirit of prayer. It is often found by those who pray and fast, that God works small miracles for them. The person who fasts diligently and conscientiously can exercise an unprecedented control over his carnal appetites and desires. It is also essential that we fast for ourselves alone, and not compare ourselves with others who are not fasting. The great temptation of those who fast is pride.

Fasting is a powerful means of mortification (i.e. disciplining our body for our sins). When one fasts and prays, one feels in one’s very body that one has struggled to make sincere atonement. When people feel that they have not done enough penance for a sin, let them fast 24, 36 or 48 hours, and they will know that they have performed their penance.
Second, fasting strengthens the will. Our Lord said that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matt. 26:41). Fasting helps the spirit to exercise its will over the flesh. It helps if the decision to fast is made a day or two before the fast commences.
Third, fasting facilitates self- examination, because under the influence of the fast we see ourselves quite differently. Our sense of ourselves is related to feeling our ordinary selves, to eating and drinking like our ordinary selves. Changing our intake of food and drink immediately upsets the established patterns of our reactions: we are no longer our ordinary selves. We acquire new perceptions and feelings through the unaccustomed impressions of depriving ourselves of food and flavoured drink.
Being prepared to discipline ourselves, we are often able to make better confessions.

Fasting can bring a welcome sense of freedom, not only physically, but in the feeling and the mind, too. Our appetites enslave us more than we know, and being able to do without food helps us break this slavery. We often find, when we fast, that we don’t need as much food as we thought we did.
What we really crave is often not so much the food as the experience of satisfying our desire. Being a little hungry is not as bad as we might imagine: but the anticipation of eating something delightful can make fasting seem intolerable. Fasting shows us what a large part eating and even drooling over the prospect of eating play in our lives. When consumption is put into its proper place, there is more room in our minds and hearts for the spiritual life.
It should also be noted that the traditional understanding of the Church is that fasting from meat and dairy products is of help in overcoming the lust of the flesh. Further, substantial health benefits accrue from fasting, as long as one does not binge afterwards. Looking after our health is good and legitimate, after all, our body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).

St Maximos the Confessor tells us that: “Food was created for nourishment and healing. Those who eat food for purposes other than these two are therefore to be condemned as self- indulgent, because they misuse the gifts God has given us for our use. In all things, misuse is a sin.” This is worth pondering, especially today as modern culture has tried to sensualise food and eating, and has, to a significant extent, succeeded for many people.
If food is fresh, nourishing and natural, then it will be satisfying to the taste as well. In fact, part of God’s providence.

The law of abstinence bind all Catholics from the age of seven to 59, and the laws of fasting from the age of fourteen to 59. But judgment is needed, and if you are older, you can always keep those rules.

This was written by a Maronite priest. Of your mercy, please pray for those souls in Purgatory who have no one else to pray for them, and also pray for that priest.

The Spirituality of St Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh)

"A little endurance in the face of small matters will hold back danger when serious ones come." 

St Isaac the Syrian (Feast Day August 23rd, Maronite Calendar)

St Isaac sought to find and teach the way to God through a Christian life in which worship, the sacraments and prayer, transform and uplift the whole person: body, heart and soul. This saint truly exemplifies the Syrian emphasis on including the body in the process of sanctification, so that matter is not disdained, but is lifted to the divine. 

Although he was a religious solitary, writing for religious hermits, he was full of wisdom and common sense: e.g. the proverb above about the importance of watching the small steps which make up our journey. 

The Maronite Synaxarion notes that the feast of St Isaac the Syrian is celebrated, in our Church, on 23 August, and states: “Saint Isaac was born (about 613) in the region of Qatar, on the Persian Gulf. In his time, the seventh century, Qatar was an important Christian centre, and gave the Church a number of distinguished writers, many of whom were mystics. Isaac adopted the monastic life, but was chosen by Patriarch George I to be bishop of Nineveh (today Mosul), in Mesopotamia, in the year 676. But after five months was (somehow) obliged to resign his See, and removed to Khuzistan, in Jabal Mattuth, and then to the nearby monastery of Rabban Sabour.” It is not known when he died, but it was, perhaps, around 700. In some of the Orthodox Churches, his feast is celebrated on 28 January, with that of St Ephrem. 

Body, Heart and Mind 

“Every prayer over which the body (fagro) does not share the toil, and over which the heart (lebo) does not feel suffering, you should consider to be stillborn (yaHTo).” St Isaac means that if our prayer is purely intellectual, passing through the mind but making no impact on our feeling of ourselves and our hearts, it is without the possibility of progress in the spiritual life. That is why he describes it as being “still-born,” it had potential but that potential will not lead anywhere. St Isaac understood that the mind may see a need for change, and may direct it, but the power to change comes from the body and the heart. 

In another place, St Isaac observes that it is crucial to take a good reverent posture of the body when praying: a person’s posture tells us much about their state and their attitude. St Isaac advises us to stand, to raise one’s arms, or to even lie prostrate on the ground in order to prepare the body for prayer. It is not that God needs us to take humble and beseeching positions: rather, it is we who benefit from them. The point is to take a posture which is a sign of good intention and where we can best hold our attention: this is very difficult indeed when lying down on our backs, or hunched up. 

St Isaac here bases himself on two facts: the Incarnation of the Lord as a human being, and the fact that we are still in our bodies. The Lord did not despise the human body – neither should we. We are not disembodied spirits, and so we should not pretend that “prayer of the heart suffices by itself …” (Sebastian Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life, 276). It is true that what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit, as the Lord said (John 3:6). St Isaac’s point is that the spirit can infuse the body, lift and transform it.

The Syriac Approach to the Divine 

It is no surprise to anyone acquainted with Syriac thought that St Isaac’s approach to God is typological, that is only the divine world is true and real; this world is an image of the divine. We can move towards God because He appears to us as an image, a “true icon of the world beyond” (yiqoneh šariro d.3olmo dal.hal) (see Mary Hansbury, Isaac the Syrian’s Spiritual Works, 8), and prayer is the best way of bringing the mind to “fellowship” (neštawtaf, from the same root as the word for Eucharistic Communion). 

A premium is placed on work, stillness and meditation. There is no contradiction here, for if one can work with interior stillness, there is pure action, and we can then be busy in the world while maintaining purity of intention. The word used for “meditation” is often renyo, “thinking, paying attention”, a thought which is a quiet gazing upon pure reality, without illusion. Another word for meditation is hergo (to let the mind dwell on God’s plan for salvation, from the creation through to the Second Coming). 

The cleansing of our thought and our seeing begins, says St Isaac, with a sense of wonder, tehro, in Syriac. What is wonder? In the Syriac tradition, it is not just seeing something as if for the first time, and with an emotion of surprise, it is also the emotion of joy or ecstasy which comes with that sight. In the solitary tradition, wonder is the divine energy which transforms our sight of the world and allows us to see that the miraculous is the real. Wonder takes us to the mystery behind the universe, and to the divine essence, and by lifting our spirits even improves our ordinary lives (Hansbury, 14-16). 

By conforming our earthly life to the divine, we use the higher as a pattern for the lower; and so the body changes from being a servant of carnal and material intention to becoming a vessel of the divine. St Isaac writes: “By stillness of the body and ceasing from this world, solitaries imagine the true stillness and the withdrawal from nature which will occur at the end of the corporeal world. By means of the mind, they are united with the world of the spirit. By means of meditation they are involved in the expanse above. Thus, symbolically, they remain continually in the future reality” (Hansbury, 18-20). 

There is an issue with Hansbury’s translation here: the word which she has rendered as “symbolically” is no such thing – it is dab.Tuf.so, meaning “according to the type”, or “the archetype”. What St Isaac is saying is that when we begin to see with the eyes of the heart that the earth is modelled on the archetype of heaven, then by looking to that eternal reality we share in it.

But for the world to more truly reflect the divine model on which it has been created, we must cleanse it of what is evil and build up what is good: this is our labour, our work. 

External order is therefore central to the holy life, since: “For thoughts to be at peace, it is necessary to show great care also for exterior things … neglect (and) disorderliness of the body can stir up very vicious struggles” (Hansbury, 26). In keeping with the understanding of the significance of the Incarnation of the divine in the human, the lower must be put in order so that it can receive the divine. The human must be respected on its level, and not for its own sake, but for that of God who made and makes use of us and our bodies. 

When St Isaac speaks of disciplining and mortifying the body, as he so often does, he does not mean to do so with some stern attitude of punishing the body for being flesh. He means, of course, not to identify with the body, not to worship it. For example, physical health is good, it is a great advantage to be physically healthy when seeking spiritual, intellectual and emotional health: then, when they have been achieved, at least to some degree, one can withstand illness, even severe suffering, because one is now balanced in a higher state. If I seek physical health for the sake of my spiritual health, and never confuse one for the other, I shall walk safely. But if I start to pride myself on my appearance, my clear skin, or my physique, I am bowing before an idol. 

One last thought from St Isaac: Love is sweeter than life; but even sweeter than honey and a honeycomb is an insight concerning God out of which love is born. 

This was written by a Maronite priest. Of your mercy, please pray for those souls in Purgatory who have no one else to pray for them, and also pray for that priest.

Offering Lenten Reflections

Praying with Scripture was the topic offered to the St. Julie's Ladies Guild in Dartmouth MA on March 13.  The meeting of over 50 ladies appreciated Sister Marla Marie's presentation on how to pray with God's Word.  The women were introduced to Lectio Divina and tips on including scripture in their daily prayer.  

On Monday, March 11, Mother Marla Marie facilitated a morning of recollection for the ladies of St. Ann’s Maronite Church in Watervliet, New York.  The theme was Family Prayer. Sister Marla Marie walked the ladies through the importance of prayer in general, but then its significance in the family home, which is the “domestic Church.” Sister Marla Marie emphasized that prayer must start in the home. She recommended helpful tips such as declaring meal times a “no-phone zone”; setting up parameters and expectations for “family time” and being faithful to it; reviewing the Sunday Gospel; the rosary and other prayers. 

Going Deeper: Freedom And The Present Moment

“I am with you always to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

by Sr. Therese Maria Touma, MSCL

In Going Deeper this month, excerpts from chapter two (Freedom and the Present Moment) of the book Interior Freedom written by Jacques Philippe are shared for further reflection. We are encouraged to take some quiet time to invite the Holy Spirit to guide us to prayerfully ponder some of these ideas on growing in interior freedom. According to Philippe, interior freedom requires that a person have the capacity to live and embrace the reality of the present moment. He affirms that it is only then that we can truly exercise our freedom. (Pg. 81)

In today’s fast paced and hi-tech society it is difficult to be “present” in the present moment, and in particular to be attentive to the person before us. There are so many distractions, advertisements, social media, and competing voices clamoring for our attention. Moreover, it is easy to get stuck dwelling on our past mistakes and/or be bogged down by the demands and anxieties of the future. If we are honest with ourselves we realize that we have forgotten how to embrace the gift of the “now,” where God is communicating to us his life, tenderness and merciful love.

I appreciate Philippe’s thought on how the merciful presence of God is found within each instant of our lives:

“Every moment, whatever it brings, is filled with God’s presence, rich with the possibility of communion with God. We do not commune with God in the past or the future, but by welcoming each instant as the place where he gives himself to us. We should learn to live in each moment as sufficient to itself for God is there; and if God is there, we lack nothing. We feel we are missing this or that, simply because we are living in the past or in the future instead of dwelling in each second. There is something very liberating in this understanding of the grace of the present moment. Even if the whole of our past has been a disaster, even if our future seems like at a dead end, now we can establish communion with God through an act of faith, trust, and abandonment. God is eternally present, eternally young; eternally new, and our past and future are his. He can forgive everything, purify everything, and renew everything.” (Pg. 82)

In addition, Philippe provides practical insights to assist us to be aware of the “shadows of the past,” thoughts and attitudes that make us fret about old disappointments and choices. He aptly suggests that we should genuinely ask God‘s forgiveness for past mistakes and grow from them; he goes on to advise that while seeking to make restitution for any injury caused, we should humbly surrender things into God’s hands with confidence, living in the present and trusting that God will work everything for our good. (Pg. 86)

When we are overwhelmed by thoughts of how much we still have to do, feeling threatened by our inadequacies, or paralyzed by the feelings that we are not good enough, we are encouraged to make an act of faith and hope, such as: thank you, God, for everything. I trust in you. Philippe emphasizes that nothing can please God more than us coming to him with child-like trust and relinquishing to him the messiness of our daily lives:

“I firmly believe that you can bring good out of everything I have lived through. I want to have no regrets, and I resolve today to begin from zero, with exactly the same trust as if all my past history were made up of nothing but faithfulness in holiness.” (Pg. 87)

To avoid the mistake of burdening the present with the future, Philippe suggests that we reflect on the lesson contained in the Gospel (Matthew 6:25-34) about abandonment to God’s providence, and to ask for God‘s grace to live it. He notes that living in the present and relying on God’s providence does not mean being negligent or imprudent. Indeed, we need to plan for the future and consider tomorrow’s undertakings. But we should do it without agonizing or being anxious. Often this added stress thwarts us from putting our hearts into what we need to do and prevents us from being open to the grace that God desires to offer us. (Pg. 87)

It no surprise that things don’t always happen in life as we anticipate or hope. Philippe points out that most of our anxieties and worries turn out to be entirely imagined. He writes: “That difficulties we anticipated become very simple in reality; and the real difficulties are things that didn’t occur to us. It’s better to accept things as they come, one after another, trusting that we will have the grace to deal with them at the right moment, then to invent a host of scenarios about what may happen—scenarios that normally turn out to be wrong.”

If there was one take away point from Philippe’s chapter: it is to do our best in being mindful of the present where God is, and to be intentional in putting our whole heart into whatever we are doing in that moment.  

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, give us the grace to be mindful of your loving and merciful presence in each moment of our lives. May we strive to do your will, knowing that it is in doing your will that we find true peace and freedom. Amen.

If you have any comments or questions regarding this topic and/or other recommended spiritual resources please email Sister Marla Marie Lucas: sister@maroniteservants.org    

Are you looking for good spiritual reading? We highly encourage you to purchase and read this insightful book on Interior Freedom which can be found online.