Caput XVI. De jejunio
Fasting Joined with Prayer
Fasting reaches its full power when joined with almsgiving, prayer, and heavenly contemplation.
Fasting is perfected when it's accomplished through almsgiving and prayer. It passes through heaven and reaches the throne of the most high God. For then a person made spiritual is joined to the angels and united more freely to God, if the body's abstinence is lifted up by prayers. Through fasts and prayers the hidden things of heavenly mysteries are revealed, and the secret things of the divine Sacrament are laid open.
Fasting as Spiritual Weapon
From Adam's fall to Christ's teaching, fasting is shown as God's appointed defense against the devil.
As long as Adam held back, he remained in paradise; he ate, and he was driven out. Fasts are strong weapons against the assaults of demons, for they're quickly overcome through abstinence. Therefore our Lord and Savior also instructs us beforehand to overcome their onslaughts by fasts and prayers, saying: "This kind is not cast out except in prayer and fasting."✦ XVII, 20; Mark✦✦ IX, 28).
The True Fast
True fasting weakens the flesh but strengthens the soul, and must include abstaining from sin, not only food.
Unclean spirits, for their part, boldly throw themselves in where they see feasts and drunkenness happening often. Abstinence wears down the body, but it fattens the heart. It weakens the flesh, but it strengthens the soul. But you should know that fasts joined with good works are most pleasing to God. But those who abstain from food and yet act wickedly are imitating demons, for whom there is no carnal food and in whom spiritual wickedness is always present. For the one who also abstains from acts of malice and fasts from the ambitions of the world abstains well from food. It is better to refresh the mind that is to live forever with the holy feast of preaching and the nourishment of God's word, than to fill the belly of deadly flesh with earthly bread and sumptuous banquets.
Read the original Latin
Perfectum est jejunium, quod in eleemosynis et oratione fit. Coelum transit, et ad thronum altissimi Dei pervenit. Tunc enim homo spiritualis effectus angelis conjungitur, Deoque liberius copulatur, si abstinentia carnis orationibus exaltatur. Per jejunia et orationes occulta mysteriorum coelestium revelantur, divinique sacramenti arcana panduntur. Quandiu Adam abstinuit, mansit in paradiso: manducavit, et expulsus est. Jejunia fortia tela sunt adversus tentamenta daemoniorum; cito enim per abstinentiam vincuntur. Unde etiam Dominus et Salvator noster eorum incursus jejuniis et orationibus praemonet superare dicens: Hoc genus non ejicitur, nisi in oratione et jejunio (Matth. XVII, 20; Marc.
IX, 28). Immundi enim spiritus ibi se fiducialibus immittunt, ubi videbunt frequenter comessationes et ebrietates exerceri. Abstinentia corpus macerat, sed cor impinguescit. Carnem debilitat, sed animam confortat. Sed sciendum est quod jejunia cum bonis operibus Deo optime sunt acceptabilia. Qui autem a cibis abstinent, et prave agunt; daemones imitantur, quibus esca carnalis non est, et nequitia spiritualis semper inest. Ille enim bene abstinet a cibis, qui et a malitiae actibus, et a mundi jejunat ambitionibus. Melius est praedicationis sanctae convivio et verbi Dei pabulo victuram in perpetuo mentem reficere, quam ventrem mortiferae carnis terreno pane et deliciosis saturare epulis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.17.20 — And he said to them, 'Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. And nothing will be impossible for you.'
- ↩Matt.17.20 — And he said to them, 'Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. And nothing will be impossible for you.'
- ↩Mark.9.29 — And he said to them, 'This kind cannot come out by anything except by prayer.'
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