Time of Fasting and Beautification of the Image of God in us
As we enter the Great Fast, I would like for us to ponder at the value of fasting. Fasting in an opportunity to reflect on our lives as we remember the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for us as we approach Holy Week.
Recently a young man who decided this year to try to fast from meat throughout the whole Lent for the first time in his life explained his decision this way: “I will do this for Christ. If He died for me, this is a small thing to do for Him.”
Fasting is, of course, a spiritual exercise. As we exercise our ability to control what we eat we also cultivate our ability to control our sinful urges and develop our virtues. We need to beautify the “Image of God” in us. Our ultimate goal is to attain perfection in the “likeness of God”.
Here is a comment from one of the great fathers of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, who advises his hearers to fast:
“We do not become like God by eating and drinking and adorning ourselves. For God does not eat or drink or adorn Himself. We would become like God by exercising justice, by showing loving-kindness, by being useful, meek and merciful to others and by seeking every virtue. For eating and drinking is common even with the irrational beasts and we differ nothing in that with them. Where, then, does our superiority come? From the fact that we have been made in the image of God and his likeness.” St. John Chrysostom, In illud: Domine; non est in homine, PG 56, IV, 159
Wishing you a Blessed & Holy Great Lent,
Fr. Panayiotis