What does the prophet when he says, “Consecrate a fast … call a sacred assembly” (Joel 1:14; 2:15)?

To consecrate a fast is to encounter the Holy God; and the calling of a sacred assembly is the whole believer’s engrossment in the vision of God and dialogue with Him, that he may partake in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and bear the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17). In our fasts, we pray to be united with our Christ by the work of His Holy Spirit, to become a holy icon of Him. We savor the divine commandment and pray for the divine promise: “You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). We resist evil, not out of fear of eternal punishment, but out of desire to become an icon of the Holy One.

St. Aphrahat says, “It is not fitting for a man to mix honey with wormwood (Prov. 5:3– 4). Indeed, if a man fast from bread and water, he should not mix with his fast abuses and curses. For, there is only one door for your house, which is the temple of God. O man, it is not fitting for you that the door through which the king comes in it, that goes out from it excrement and filth. For, if a person abstains from all these hateful things and receives the body and blood of Christ, he should take care of his mouth through which the Son of the King comes in. You have no authority, O man, to bring forth foul language from your mouth.”⁴²⁹

St. Basil also says, “True fasting is being a stranger to vice, controlling the tongue, abstaining from anger, distancing oneself from lust, evil speech, lying, perjury. The absence of these vices makes fasting true, and so shunning these vices makes fasting good.”⁴³⁰

St. Evagrius says, “He who disciplines his body wisely becomes passionless, but when he feeds his body (with gluttony) suffers from the passions.”

Abba Dorotheos says, “One should also fast with the eyes, that is, not look at vain things, not give freedom to the eyes, not look shamelessly and without fear at anyone.”[ 431]

428 St. John Cassian, Institutes 5.21 (NPNFII/11:241).

429 Aphraphat: Demonstrations I , trans., Kuriakose Valavan (St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2005) Demonstration 3.2: pp. 62.

430 Dorotheos of Gaza, “Directions on Spiritual Training” in Early Fathers From the Philokalia , translated from the Russian text, “Dobrotolubiye,” by E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, eighth edition (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1981) 102: p. 176.

431 St. Basil of Caesarea, On Fasting and Feasts 1.2 (PP 50:56).

St. Basil says, “Do not doll yourself up with gloom in an attempt to win renown by the appearance of self-control … Ostentatious deeds do not bear fruit that extends to the age to come but culminate in being praised by others.”⁴³²