Then again, do not take the serpent as your advisor who suggest that you eat out of regard for the flesh. Do not use bodily weakness and illness as an excuse. For you are not giving such excuses to me but to someone who already knows. Tell me, are you unable to fast? Are you able to stuff yourself throughout life? Are you able to wreck your body with the heaviness of the food you’ve eaten? And yet I know that physicians do not prescribe a variety of foods for the sick, but rather not eating and going without food. So then, if you are able to comply with one [treatment], how can you allege that you cannot follow the other? What is easier for the stomach? To pass the night with plain fare? Or for it to lie there weighed down by an abundance of food? Or rather, not for it to lie there, but for it to be constantly upset, bloated, and grumbling?
Indeed, you wouldn’t claim that it is easier for pilots to save a cargo ship loaded down with goods than one less laden and lighter, would you? After all, a slight swelling of the waves has sunk the heavily weighted cargo ship, whereas one that has a moderate amount of freight easily rises above the waves, since nothing hinders it from floating above them. And so, when human bodies are weighed down with unremitting self-indulgence, they are easily inundated with illnesses. But when bodies take nourishment that is light and easy, they escape the impending evil that arises from sickness like a swelling storm, and they evade the present distress that acts like the assault of a tempest. Surely you must think that keeping still is more strenuous than running, and resting more strenuous than wrestling, if indeed you really claim that self-indulgence is more appropriate for the sick than eating lightly. In fact, the faculty that keeps the body alive easily digests a moderate amount of light food and makes it suitable for nourishment. But upon receiving a variety of extravagant foods and then not being satisfied with reaching its limit, it engenders many kinds of sickness.—St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts
Category: FOOD
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Fasting is the companion of sobriety and the craftsman of self-control.
—St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts -
If you have the urge to drink two cups of coffee, drink only one.
—Tito Colliander, Way of the Ascetics
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Therefore, my son, refine the youthful impulses of your flesh, and through the virtues we have described strengthen your immortal soul and renew your intellect with the help of the Spirit. For the flesh of youth, gorged with food and wine, is like a pig ready for slaughter. The flames of sensual pleasure kill the soul, while the intellect is made a prisoner by the fierce heat of evil desire and cannot then resist such pleasure. For when the blood is heated the spirit is cooled.
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Beware also of looking with too much attention at rich food and drink, remembering our ancestress Eve, who looked with evil eyes at the fruit of the forbidden tree in the garden of Eden, desired it, plucked and ate it and so subjected to death herself and all her descendants.
—Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare -
“It is just as impossible for the person who nourishes and panders to his flesh to fly to heaven as it is for an overfed bird.”
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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Abba Silvanus and his disciple Zacharias visited a monastery. The monks invited them to share a small meal before they continued their journey. Departing, Zacharias saw a pond by the road and desired a drink of water. Silvanus reminded him that they were observing a fast that day.
Zacharius protested, “But, Abba, we have already broken our fast today.”
Silvanus replied, “We ate with them because we love them. Now that we are on our own, let’s keep our fast, my son.”
By Way of the Desert: 365 Daily Readings -
Struggle with your flesh until it is humbled. Once it is used to this modest and rough environment, it will become your mute slave. Humility of the flesh will be granted at last. You should always keep this in sight and strive for it as a reward for your labors. Physical podvigs [spiritual struggles] foster physical virtues: solitude, silence, endurance, vigilance, labor, patience in deprivations, purity, and virginity.
You should remember that this friend of yours will end up in the grave. They say: Do not trust the flesh—it is deceitful. When you come to believe it is humbled, you relax, and it immediately grabs you and conquers you. This war with it continues to the grave, but it is much harder at first. Later it gets easier and easier until finally there remains only attention to its behavior with occasional light sensations of fleshly upsurge.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation -
“Are you hungry or empty?”
—Jonice Webb PhD -
“Eat less food and you’ll get more done.”
—Robin Sharma
