Pope Shenouda III
Does your heart cling to God while fasting?
Do you give Him your heart as you do with your will? Do you feel His love while you are fasting? Does this love clearly show in your prayers and contemplation while fasting? Have you ever forgotten about your food and drink, for the sake of His love?
Is it as if you say to your body while fasting: ‘"I have no time for you now. If you have or have not eaten it does not concern me. "Everything under the sky has its own time" and this is not your time. I am preoccupied with the spiritual work with God. Come join us if you want to have some substance in this fast. As for food, there is no room for it now. My food now is every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."’
His feelings are the same as those of Saint John, saying: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day” (Revelation 1:10).
There is no doubt that days of fasting belong to the Lord. Therefore, are you "in the spirit" during your fast? Have you utterly forgotten about your bodily needs, with all its desires and opted to live in the spirit during the fasting period? You are not indebted to your body except for the necessities without which it cannot survive. It is as if you were saying with the apostle Paul: “Whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—“ (2 Cor 12:3).
