What then is the role of the body in fasting?

[Mary Naeem]

Pope Shenouda III








What then is the role of the body in fasting? And what is the role of the soul?

True fasting is a spiritual act primarily taking place inside the heart.

The function of the body in fasting is to prepare the soul or rather to disclose the soul's affection.

The soul rises above the level of materialism and food, and above the level of the body. It leads the body along in victorious procession and spiritual desires. The body expresses this through fasting.

If we confine our definition of fasting to the humiliation of the body through hunger and deprivation of what it covets, we will be adhering to the negative aspect of fasting, ignoring the positive and spiritual ones.