Fasti

“ The practice of fasting is described in other districts of the uncultured world as carried on to produce similar ecstasy and supernatural converse. The account by Roman Pane in the Life of Colon describes the practice in Hayti of fasting to obtain knowledge of future events from the spirits (cemi) ; and a century or two later, rigorous fasting formed part of the apprentice’s preparation for the craft of ‘boyé’ or sorcerer, evoker, consulter, propitiator, and exorciser of spirits. ”

“ There is no use fasting without the VISION and this begins on the Mental plane,–it is built by thought. All the fasting of the past was, to a certain extent, futile just because those who fasted never knew that they had to destroy completely the mental picture, before they could set in a new one. ”

“ For I think that if any man fast three times in the week, he already surpasses the Pharisee who fasted but twice. And if a fast is observed four times, or even so often as five times, passing over only the seventh day and the Lord’s day without fasting,—a practice observed by many through their whole lifetime, especially by those who are settled in monasteries,—by this not the Pharisee alone is surpassed in the labour of fasting, but that Christian also whose custom is to fast on the fourth, and sixth, and seventh days, as the Roman community does to a large extent. ”

“ INSTRUCTION ON LENT.
What is the origin of fasting?
Under the Old Law the Jews fasted by the command of God; thus Moses fasted forty days and forty nights, on Mount Sinai, when God gave him the Ten Commandments; Elias, in like manner, fasted in the desert. Jesus also fasted, and commanded His apostles to fast also. The Catholic Church, says St. Leo, from the time of the apostles, has enjoined fasting upon all the faithful. ”

“ Men of the Time, ed. 1868, p. 413; Cat. of Oxford Graduates, p. 323; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, ii. 158, v. 123; Ann. Reg. 1872, p. 141; Life and Correspondence of Archbishop Whately, vol. i.; Brit. Mus. Cat. ”

“ The second canon of the fourth council of Orleans (A.D. 541) opposed the attempts of some bishops to extend the fast over fifty, or even sixty days. Amalarius mentions other divergences from the Roman custom, such as keeping three Lents in the year, one before Christmas, the second before Easter, and the third before Whitsunday, and, again, fasting on the days before the Ascension. [217] In Germany, too, there were peculiarities in the discipline observed with regard to fasting during the eighth and ninth centuries. ”

“ Why did He not say, Separate for the Lord, but, “For me?” It shows that He is of one authority and power. “And when they had fasted,” etc. Seest thou what a great thing fasting is? “So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost:” it shows that the Spirit did all.
A great, yes a great good is fasting: it is circumscribed by no limits. When need was to ordain, then they fast: and to them while fasting, the Spirit spake. Thus much only do I enjoin: (I say) not fast, but abstain from luxury. ”

“ I marvel at those who say that they are keeping a voluntary fast and yet fail to perform an obligatory duty. Not to commit sin is obligatory, whereas continual fasting is an apostolic custom (which may be observed or neglected) . When a man is divinely protected from sin all his circumstances are a fast. It is related by Abú Ṭalḥa al-Málikí that Sahl b. `Abdalláh of Tustar was fasting on the day of his birth and also on the day of his death, because he was born in the forenoon and tasted no milk until the evening prayer, and on the day of his decease he was keeping a fast. ”

“ Then ʿOmar said, "O Apostle of God, how is it with the man who fasts the whole of the time?" The Apostle of God replied, "There is (for him) neither fast nor breaking of fast," or he said, "He has neither fasted nor broken the fast." ʿOmar said, "How is it with the man who fasts two days, and breaks the fast one day?" He replied, "Is anyone able to do that?" He said, "How is it with the man who fasts one day, and breaks the fast one day?" He replied, "That was the fast of David." He said, "How is it with the man who fasts one day, and abstains from fasting two days?" ”

“ For the first time he entered Wunzh's little fasting-lodge, and sitting down beside the youth, he began to deliver his instructions to him and to inform him in what manner he should proceed to take advantage of his victory.
"You have won your desire of the Great Spirit," said the beautiful stranger. "You have wrestled manfully. To-morrow will be the seventh day of your fasting. Your father will give you food to strengthen you, and as it is the last day of trial you will prevail. ”

“ Serapion, contrary to most of the authorities, recommends that the person who sucks a poisoned wound, should be in a fasting state; but as he is a servile copyist from his predecessors, it might be suspected that the text is in fault, if the same directions were not given by Rabbi Moyses, with this explanation: that a fasting person will perform this office with more risk to himself, but with greater advantage to the patient, than one who had taken food immediately beforehand. ”

“ The Publican fasted not; and yet he was accepted in preference to him who had fasted; in order that thou mayest learn that fasting is unprofitable, except all other duties follow with it. The Ninevites fasted, and won the favour of God. [26] The Jews, fasted too, and profited nothing, nay, they departed with blame. [27] Since then the danger in fasting is so great to those who do not know how they ought to fast, we should learn the laws of this exercise, in order that we may not “run uncertainly,” nor “beat the air,” nor while we are fighting contend with a shadow. Fasting is a medicine ”

“ Fasting has in all ages of the church been consecrated, upon special occasions, to the service of religion; the Pharisees were much in it; many of them kept two fast-days in a week, and yet the generality of them were hypocrites and bad men. Note, False and formal professors often excel others in outward acts of devotion, and even of mortification. The disciples of John fasted often, partly in compliance with their master's practice, for he came neither eating nor drinking (ch. xi. 18) ; and people are apt to imitate their leaders, though not always from the same inward principle ”

“ There are those who have fasted outside of instructions, with just a little learning, never acquainting themselves with the real meaning of the Fast, then when they have come upon some unexplainable phenomena in mind and body they have laid the blame on fasting, when in fact it was only their own ignorant use of a great Cosmic Law. ”

“ Roman Catholics identify fasting with a "good deed," see in it a sacrifice which earns us a "merit." "What shall I give up for Lent?"—this question is very typical of such an attitude toward fasting. Fasting thus is a formal obligation, an act of obedience to the Church, and its value comes precisely from obedience. The Orthodox idea of fasting is first of all that of an ascetical effort. It is the effort to subdue the physical, the fleshly man to the spiritual one, the "natural" to the "supernatural." Limitations in food are instrumental; they are not ends in themselves. ”

“ Joel also cries aloud: [183] “Sanctify a fast, proclaim a time of healing,” that it might appear that a fast is sanctified by other works, and that a holy fast avails for the cure of sin. Moreover, just as true virginity is not prejudiced by the counterfeit professions of the virgins of the devil, so neither is true fasting by the periodic fast and perpetual abstinence from certain kinds of food on the part of the worshippers of Isis and Cybele, particularly when a fast from bread is made up for by feasting on flesh. ”

“ He laughingly answered them: “If you fast four times a week this year so as to advance in perfection, you will be obliged for the same reason to fast five times the next year, then six, then seven times; and the number of your fasts being always the guage of the degree of perfection you shall have attained, it will be necessary for you, under pain of advancing no more, thereafter to fast twice a day, then thrice, then four times, and so on.” What Saint Francis de Sales said of fasting is just as applicable to all other devout practices. ”

“ He said not, He saw [their] fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I say not this to overturn fasting, (God forbid!) but to exhort you that with fasting ye do that which is better than fasting, the abstaining from all evil. ”

“ This is plain in the 336case of the Ninevites, (Jonah iii. 5,) whose notion of fasting, to appease the wrath of God, seems to have been common to them with the rest of mankind. In the Old Testament, besides the examples of private fasting by David, (Ps. lxix. 10,) and Daniel, (Dan. ix. 3,) and others, we have instances of public fasts observed by the whole nation of the Jews at once upon solemn occasions. (See Lev. xxiii. 26, &c.; 2 Chron. xx. 3; Ezra viii. 21; Jer. xxxvi. 9; Zech. viii. 19; Joel i. 14.) ”

“ For this dispensation from fasting must not be understood as a participation in the Jewish festival by those above all who are shown to be free from all Jewish superstition, but as contributing to that rest of the wearied body of which we have spoken; which, as it fasts continually for five days in the week all through the year, would easily be worn out and fail, unless it were revived by an interval of at least two days. ”

“ And everyone is bound by the natural dictate of reason to practice fasting as far as it is necessary for these purposes. Wherefore fasting in general is a matter of precept of the natural law, while the fixing of the time and manner of fasting as becoming and profitable to the Christian people, is a matter of precept of positive law established by ecclesiastical authority: the latter is the Church fast, the former is the fast prescribed by nature. ”

“ Victor now went the length of breaking off church fellowship with them, but this extreme procedure met with little favour. Even Irenæus expressed himself to the Gallican bishops as opposed to it.―Continuation § 56, 3.
§ 37.3. The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.―The Didache gives evidence that even at so early a date, the regular fasts were religiously observed on the Dies stationum by expressly forbidding fasting “with hypocrites” (Jews and Jewish Christians, Luke xviii. 12) on Monday and Thursday, instead of the Christian practice of so observing Wednesday and Friday. ”

“ How absurd then would it be for Jesus' followers to fast while the heavenly Bridegroom was with them! They might express their distress thus when he should be taken away. Thus Jesus declared that fasting, like all religious rites, may be quite fitting if it is a true expression of religious feeling, but if it is a matter of form, of rule, or requirement, if it is regarded as a ground of merit, it is an absurdity and an impertinence. ”

“ And the main objection to ecclesiastic fasts is the circumstance that they were rarely persistent enough. "Fasting," i.e., abstaining from meat on Friday and for a few weeks in early spring can hardly be expected to undo the mischief of two hundred and seventy-five carnivorous days. ”

“ It may perhaps be that the institution of fasting as a church ordinance has been permitted to be set aside in order to make it more than ever a part of each earnest man’s own private life. Perhaps it was in some ways full time that it should be again said to us, ‘Thou, when thou fastest, appear not unto men to fast.’ As also, ‘Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? ”

“ Whatever necessity may arise, or good reason, compelling a Christian to fast on the Lord’s day,—as we find, e.g., in the Acts of the Apostles, that in peril of shipwreck they fasted on board of the ship in which the apostle was for fourteen days successively, within which the Lord’s day came round twice, [20] —we ought to have no hesitation in believing that the Lord’s day is not to be placed among the days of voluntary fasting, except in the case of one vowing to fast continuously for a period longer than a week. ”

“ During every kind of fast, the person sleeps on the ground, plays at no game, has no connection with women, neither shaves nor anoints himself, and bestows alms each day. - Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 247-250. How much more simple and effectual is the way of salvation taught in the Bible! But, because it is true, it is not credited by fallen man.
Fasting is considered by the Mohammedans as an essential part of piety. Their orthodox divines term it the gate of religion. ”

“ One day in every week is set apart, beside other days and seasons, as a reminder of the fact that fasting is a duty of the Christian life, just as much as almsgiving and prayer—a duty sanctified by the example enjoined by the precept of our Lord Himself.
True, no hard and fast rules are laid down, but a little sanctified common sense will dictate to us how to make fast-days a reality, by some simple acts of self-denial. ”

“ I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
18 John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast?"
19 Jesus said to them, "Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can't fast. ”

“ Fasting is reported, In some cases, as extending to an incredible period of time, continuing in some cases for months. Hindoos often fasted for a week, and in some cases, if reports are time, for several weeks. ”

“ It gradually, as the fasting is prolonged, loses its convexity, and becomes flat. This must be bad, but there is worse yet to come. Times goes on, and what had become flat, begins to sink, and becomes concave. ”

“ Popular conception of the fasting month as a month of expiation.In like manner the fast itself has a higher place in the popular estimation than in the law. It is indeed one of the main pillars of the creed of Islam, but in actual practise it is improperly accepted as the greatest pillar of all, since hundreds who never perform a single seumayang (a duty just as obligatory as the other) are faithful observers of the fast. ”