The Fast God Rejects: Five Modern Saints on True Fasting
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What the video says
The video opens by challenging superficial fasting that only removes meat and dairy, citing Isaiah 58 where God rejects fasting accompanied by quarrels and oppression. True fasting requires loosening the bonds of injustice and sharing bread with the hungry.
Saints including Gavrilia, Paisios, Gabriel the Fool for Christ, and Eldress Galaktia describe three common mistakes: treating fasting as optional, making it an end in itself rather than a tool for humility, and neglecting the fast of the tongue and senses. The bodily fast is not voided but completed by spiritual fasting.
The central danger is pride, feeling superior because one fasts strictly. The repeated solution from multiple saints is to fast under obedience to a spiritual father, keeping the triad of fasting, confession, and communion without adding or subtracting on one's own initiative.
Key moments
- Superficial fasting from food alone fails to benefit the soul and can fill a person with pride
- Isaiah 58 shows God rejects fasting with strife and oppression; true fast is loosing bonds of injustice and sharing bread with the hungry
- First mistake: dismissing fasting as outdated; St. Gavrilia notes people endure diets for body but not fasts for soul; St. Paisios warns against updating tradition as if God changed
- Second mistake: treating fasting as a goal rather than a tool to calm the mind, control passions, and acquire humility
- St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ: eat just enough not to be hungry; true fasting is repentance that makes you forget hunger; prayer and fasting cast out demons
- Third mistake: stopping at bodily fast; true fasting is abstaining from all evil, beginning with the tongue (gossip, judgment, pride, lies)
- Eldress Galaktia: God asks simple things, fast, confess, commune, forgive, give alms in secret, share bread with the hungry
- The trap of pride escapes by not fasting alone: consult spiritual father, follow his rule without adding or subtracting; the triad of fasting, confession, communion appears repeatedly
The video challenges fasting that only removes meat and dairy, opening with Isaiah 58, where God rejects fasting accompanied by quarrels and oppression. True fasting, it says, requires loosening the bonds of injustice and sharing bread with the hungry. Saints Paisios the Athonite, Gabriel the Fool for Christ, Gavrilia, Archimandrite Justin Pîrvu, and Eldress Galaktia of Crete describe three common mistakes.
The first is treating fasting as optional: St. Gavrilia notes that people endure diets for the body but not fasts for the soul, and St. Paisios warns against updating tradition as if God had changed. The second is making fasting a goal in itself rather than a tool to calm the mind, subdue passions, and acquire humility. The third is stopping at the bodily fast: true fasting abstains from all evil, beginning with the tongue, including gossip, judgment, pride, and lies.
St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ teaches to eat just enough not to be hungry, and that true fasting is repentance that makes a person forget hunger; prayer and fasting cast out demons. Eldress Galaktia says God asks simple things: fast, confess, commune, forgive, give alms in secret, and share bread with the hungry. The central danger is pride, feeling superior because one fasts strictly while judging those who do not.
The repeated answer from the saints is to fast under obedience to a spiritual father, keeping the triad of fasting, confession, and communion without adding or subtracting on one's own initiative. The video also answers common questions: sick people may adjust their diet, according to St. Paisios, and health matters should be discussed with a spiritual father and doctor.
Main points
- Fasting from food alone fails to benefit the soul and can fill a person with pride
- Isaiah 58 shows God rejects fasting joined to strife and oppression; the true fast looses bonds of injustice and shares bread with the hungry
- Three mistakes: treating fasting as optional, making it a goal instead of a tool for humility, and stopping at the bodily fast
- St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ: eat just enough not to be hungry; true fasting is repentance that makes you forget hunger
- The trap of pride is escaped by fasting under a spiritual father, keeping the triad of fasting, confession, and communion