- Fasting is an offering of love brought to God.
- Forgiveness is the good start of a fasting period. Without forgiveness, no one can enter the fasting period as a time of spiritual struggle to purify our soul from sins and enlighten it.
- At the foundation of fasting are devotion and love of God. We fast because we love God more than His material gifts that we consume.
- Fasting is a sign of the believer’s desire to be free from greed for limited, ephemeral, material goods, in order to unite by prayer with the boundless, eternal God, the source of life and eternal joy.
- Faithful who consider their tie with God as the centre, the light and nourishment of their soul enhance their prayer by fasting.
- Whoever fasts but does not pray does not gather spiritual light in his soul, thus conducting a mere biological and psychological exercise, from hygienic or aesthetic reasons.
- To truly fast means not only to abstain from food of animal origin but also from any material greed or selfish desire of dominion; it means to refrain from any thought, word or deed that diminish the love of God and of our neighbour.
- True fasting should be combined with humbleness and joy in order to become an inner, intimate, spiritual labour of man’s personal communion with God, Who mystically observes a silent soul and the deeds performed by a sacrificial faithful who prays and fasts constantly.
- By fasting we mystically participate in the 40-day Fast that our Saviour performed in the wilderness. No one can fight against evil spirits and darkened, selfish passions, unless they have first acquired by fast and prayer the light of the divine grace.
- We are called especially during the Great Lent to become righteous and change the behaviour or attitude of the old Adam within us, not by blaming others for our own sins, but by admitting and by weeping for them, by judging ourselves during the Holy Mystery of Repentance or Confession, so that we can receive redemption of sins and partake of Christ’s holy love grated to us in the Holy Eucharist.
10 Quotes from Patriarch Daniel on Fasting
