Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich on Fasting

Do you not know that angels are the constant watchers and guardians of those that fast, just as the demons, those very friends of greasy stuffs, those lovers of blood and companions of drunkards, are the associates of those that give themselves up to debauchery and orgies during such a holy time as Lent? The angels and saints, as also the evil spirits, ally themselves with those they love; they become related with that which is pleasing to them. Every day in our life God points out a lesson to us concerning the eternal life, but we very seldom heed it; in a word, we generally don’t care! Oh, is this not terrible to think of? And yet no one man will deliberately, so to speak, attempt to slight the Almighty Creator, no one who is capable of using his understanding in the very least degree. But yet, beloved brethren, we do it! We, day after day, in our worldly habits unconsciously say: “I don’t care!” Have we a right to do anything at all unconsciously, when He, in Whose hand the very breath of our life flutters as a very weak, little thing, when He, I say, bestowed upon us this conscience? Over and over again we dare to directly disobey God’s commands. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God (Heb. 10:31). But the Lord of Hosts is long-suffering, and to repentant Christians He is the Father of Mercies. Yet it behooves us, Christians, to zealously watch every step we take, to be sure that we are walking in the path that our Holy Church not only pointed out, but, as it were, even cut out for us by the stream of martyrs’ blood, by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit abiding in the sainted bishops of the universal Councils, the night labor of praying and fasting fathers, and a host of pure, self-sacrificing, obedient women, such as Mary, Thecla, Barbara, Macrina. The Church says that in the time of Lent we must fast, and we should not disobey, because our Holy Church is the Church of God, and she tells us what God Himself wills that we should do. If we have all the learning of the nineteenth century, it will appear as a blank before the simple words of the Church, spoken in the power of the Spirit of God. We cannot, and we have no right (for who gave us such a privilege?), to excuse ourselves. We are with good intention, in simplicity of heart, to obey the commandments of the Church, and not worry about adapting ourselves to the ways of the Church, for when we obey with our whole heart, with a strong desire to fulfill the holy commandments, then our Holy Mother Church adapts herself to the weakness of her faithful children.

Taken from the Saint Herman Calendar 2008.