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St. Joseph Marello - 1891

implore the Lord's help or placate his wrath, or as a nourishment
for virtue and a salutary remedy to tame the flesh for the
advantage of the spirit. The Ninevites fasted, although they
were Gentiles, in order not to succumb to the terrible prophecies
of the Prophet Jonas; Moses undertook a long fast on Mount
Sinai, and later that fast was converted into a perpetual law for
Israel; Saul fasted to obtain victory over the proud Philistines;
Jonathan fasted to temper his father's anger, David to first save
his sick son and later to escape the anger of his murderous
enemies. Elijah armed himself with fasting in order to reach
Mount Horeb, Habakkuk to avoid the threatened punishment,
Ezra and Nehemiah to save the people of God. Fasting was
preached by John the Baptist in the desert; it received its highest
consecration from Our Lord Jesus Christ. If Jesus himself
wished to subject himself to a long and rigorous fast in the
desert, who could ever dispense himself from it, knowing that he
is guilty while Jesus was innocence itself? On the strength of
duty and that great example, we see Paul recalling the vigils and
fastings suffered by himself as well as by the first ministers and
proclaimers of the Gospel: Eusebius of Caesaria recording the
admirable austerity of the first disciples of Jesus Christ, and St.
Justin declaring how they did not hide the voluntary austerity to
which they subjected themselves when they were first initiated
to Christianity.
Of the Lenten fast especially, also called the Great Fast,
the Holy Fathers describe how the first Christians practiced it
very austerely. They took only one meal at the hour of Vespers
(and so sparingly as to hardly satisfy their need), and they were
forbidden meat and wine and any other more refined food.
Their food was limited to vegetables, herbs and fruit, of which
many also deprived themselves in order to live on bread and
water alone; and in general, as St. John Chrysostom attests, they
abstained so much that they would have suffered any loss rather
than to neglect the obligation of the fast: omnia quis mallet pati

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