We often take criticism when we’re honest about the full experience of the Fast, especially when we say openly (not only admit but laud this) that we are intentionally weakening the body. Such a thing is unthinkable among those who regard the body almost as a thing of worship, and see giving the body whatever it wants as a law of nature.
But they deny what we assert, namely that Death is not natural, but has infected our nature, and so the demands of the body are not natural ones, quite often – what appears to be normal is excess – is actually the hegemony of the body over the person – an enslavement.
Those who criticize the weakness we impose on the body have themselves imposed a greater weakness on their bodies, for what we impose on our bodies is discipline. We weaken the body through abstinence, that we might strengthen it with discipline. The critics weaken their bodies with regard to discipline, that they might give it whatever it demands for existence, though its demands far exceed existence; indeed it demands hegemony.
The rulership of the material world over the subject persons, and their willing to fall down before its demands, shows that it is slaves that criticize us, while we are making ourselves free. No one who gives the body whatever it wants is free, but instead they are a servant of the body. Just as if you give a child or an animal whatever it wants, you are a servant of the child or of the animal. But the body sings a sweet song of sleep and contentment, so that its dominance is not realized. It lulls the child (for that is what its children are – perpetual children, in fact), and such a child cannot understand why we would ever seek rulership over ourselves as true freedom, for they find the body gives them all they think they need, until their short lives end in Death.
As one father has said, the conquest of self is the greatest enterprise of our warfare.
Let us encourage one another and admonish one another, without embarrassment and with dignity: take your freedom. Hold firm like men. Be strong. Do not yield to the false master. Let the children be content in their cradles, but we are men and free. Let us quit ourselves accordingly for, as St. Seraphim says, “he who does not fast does not really believe in God.” But we believe with our deeds, not only with our words and our minds.
In the words of the Apostle: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” (KJV) “Do manfully, and be strengthened.” (Douay-Rheims) . This great allusion to the words of the Phillistines when they drove back even Israel, even with the Ark of the Covenant, for God had judged Israel even as God has judged Death: “Be strong and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight.” gives us a sense that we will not accept the rulership of the body. The weakest will fall away, the children will not come out to fight, but we will fight like Philistines and win our honor from God.
To Whom be all honor, glory, and worship, both now and ever, and unto all ages of ages.