Why We Fast
A worker takes the trouble to get hold of the instruments that he requires. he does so not simply to have them and not use them. Nor is there any profit for him in merely possessing the instruments. What he wants is, with their help, to produce the crafted objective for which these are the efficient means.
In the same way, fasting, vigils, scriptural meditation, nakedness, and total deprivation do not constitute perfection but are the means to perfection. They are not themselves the end point of the discipline, but the end is attained through them. To practice them will therefore be useless if someone, instead of regarding these as means to an end is satisfied to regard them as the highest good. One would possess the instruments of a profession without knowing the end where the hoped for fruit is to be found.
And so anything which can trouble the purity and the peace of our heart must be avoided as something very dangerous, regardless of how useful and necessary it might actually seem to be. With this for a rule we will be able to avoid the lack of concentration which comes as the mind follows highways and byways and will be able to go with an assured sense of direction toward our longed for goal.
St. John Cassian ( Eastern monk and theological writer † 433) brought the monastic wisdom of the Desert Fathers to Gaul ( France ).
Why We Fast
Why We Fast
Devotion to the souls in Purgatory contains in itself all the works of mercy, which supernaturalized by a spirit of faith, should merit us Heaven. de Sales