Continued 👇🏾
✍🏾Guidance for Proper Fasting
a. Learning from the Fathers
The book “Ask Your Father and He Will Tell You” teaches that we must learn how to fast from the holy fathers and follow their footsteps.
b. Teaching of Saint Epiphanius
Saint Epiphanius says:
“A person whose mother is not the Church cannot have God as Father.”
Without the Church, it is impossible to know God, and without God, it is impossible to know the Church.
Therefore, it is the duty of every Christian to:
attend church regularly
learn the Word of God
pray faithfully
receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ . as the Fathers say, "the Church is for Christians".
This devotion should increase even more during fasts.
✍🏾The Spiritual Meaning of Fasting
During fasting:
The soul becomes master over the body.
The soul governs, instructs, and disciplines the flesh.
A person who does good becomes holy in both soul and body and inherits the Kingdom of Heaven.
One who does evil loses both body and soul to destruction.
When Scripture calls someone a sinner, it means the will of the flesh has conquered him.
When it calls someone righteous, it means he has conquered the desires of the flesh and brought his soul into obedience to God.
The life of a Christian is therefore a constant struggle between the will of the soul and the will of the flesh.
The Holy Scriptures teach that fasting is a time of:
humility
prayer
repentance
(Ezekiel 8:21; Nehemiah 1:4; Daniel 9:3)
Therefore, we must enter fasting with a humble heart, seeking the mercy of God and purifying our lives through sincere repentance.
Part 3 Continues ...
May the name of the Holy God be praised forever and ever in every tongue that He has created, today and always.
May the blessings of God's mother, the virgin, and the cross be upon us.
Amen.
© John's Repentance
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