Prayer and Fasting

I took some time off to recover from a car accident. Aside from some slight stiffness, I seem to be doing better. Despite that, I decided that I should get back to blogging. So, here follows a Lectio Divina.

A thick rope is made from thin, fibrous strands of hemp. One thin fiber cannot hold you tied nor can it strangle you. For you will easily, as in jest, break it and free yourself from it. If you are tied by a thick rope, you can be held bound and even be strangled by it. Neither can you break it easily nor free yourself from it. As a thick rope consists of thin and weak fibers, so the passions of man consist of minor sins. Man can break off and turn away from the beginnings of minor sins. But, when sin after sin is repeated, the weave becomes all the more stronger and stronger until in the end a passion is created, which then turns man into some kind of monster as only it knows how. You cannot easily cut it off, nor distance yourself from it, nor can you divorce yourself from it. O, if only men would beware and take care of the beginnings of sins! Then, they would not have to endure much in freeing themselves from passions. "To cut off rooted passions is as difficult as cutting off the fingers," said a monk from the Holy Mountain. To free himself from sinful passions, St. Emilianus was helped by thinking thoughts of death and, understandably, the Grace of God, without which it is extremely difficult to rid oneself of the fetters of passion. To think often of impending death, to repent and to implore Grace from Almighty God, these three save a man from the bondage of sin. St. Sisoes was asked, "At which time can passions be uprooted?" The saint replied, "As soon as one passion takes root in you, uproot it immediately." (Prologue, Reflections, March 7th)

A rope is made of many thin strands - if you are bound by one it is easy to break, but if you are bound by the whole rope it is much harder to break free.
Likewise, our passions are made up of "minor" sins - a little white lie here, a stray lustful thought there - and if we don't break those passions immediately we will soon find ourselves bound up by them as if bound by a thick rope.

And just as when we are bound by a rope we need help to escape, so too do we need help when we are bound by our passions. Lucky for us, God has provided many avenues for us to seek help - and two of those are through prayer and fasting.

Perhaps the most simplistic and effective prayer is, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a (the) sinner. This is one of the most common prayers of the Church - if not the most common - and it is one that we can pray during any occasion. If we don't know what to pray, we can recite the Jesus Prayer. If we are in danger, we can recite the Jesus Prayer. If we are faced with temptation, we can recite the Jesus Prayer.

Fasting is a way for us to learn to subdue our passions. And we don't just fast from food, but from many things - especially from those things that can excite our passions. But nature abhors a vacuum, and it seems that our human nature is the same. We need to be careful that as we fast from one passion to subdue it that we do not let another take its place. For this, we must pray more fervently.

As we start Great Lent and fast from many delicious foods to learn to subdue our passions, we also need to pray more - even if it is just the Jesus Prayer - so we do not let other passions build up and bind us. For what does it profit us to subdue one passion only to have another - or more - take its place?

Pray for me, a sinner.