“Remember that, in the Biblical narrative, humanity’s estrangement from God is first manifested in relation to food.  Our unruly appetite is a prime example of our enslavement to our own desires, of our addiction to getting what we want when and how we want it.”

—Fr. Philip LeMasters, Fasting for Fulfillment

“It is not food or good conditions in life that secure good health. It is a saintly life, the life of Christ. I know hermits who fasted with the greatest austerity and were never ill. You’re not in danger of coming to any harm by fasting…To do this, however, you need to have faith. Otherwise you will feel empty and nauseous and have a craving for food. Fasting is also a matter of faith…When you have love for things divine, you can fast with pleasure and everything is easy; otherwise everything would seem impossibly difficult.”

—St. Porphyrios

“Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the demands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Some people can happily eat a simple planned meal every day of the same things with measured portions, but find eating moderately from a variety of things impossible.  Other people would find the planned, portioned meals unbearably difficult, but would not have difficulty eating a variety of things moderately.”

—Mary S. Ford, Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage

The passion of self-love suggests to the monk that he should have pity on his body and in the name of its proper care and governance should take food more often than is fitting; for in this way self-love will lead him on step by step to fall into the pit of self-indulgence. On the other hand, self-love prompts those who are not monks to fulfill the body’s desires at once.

—St Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love

We don’t deserve to compete spiritually if we are conquered even in fleshly contests and beaten in our struggle with our stomachs.

—John Cassian

As is customary in many Egyptian households, the day before Great Lent is an occasion of great feasting, whereby the very last remains of all non-fasting foods are consumed in a joyous celebration. On one such eve of Great Lent, Azer arrived home from primary school and walked into the dining room to behold a lavish and exorbitant feast. “Why should we have an abundance of food,” questioned Azer, “while others have plain bread?” His family hardly expected such a reaction from a ravenous schoolboy. Azer turned to his mother in disappointment and added, “How can we eat this luxurious food while a poor Kurdish family lives next to us?” Their neighbors were an elderly Turkish Muslim family that had no source of income and survived on the bare necessities. Encouraged, conceivably by his mother’s silent dismay, and with delight returning to his face, he continued, “It would be good for us to offer them this food for Christ’s sake. Tomorrow we will fast and be satisfied with a modest meal.” According to the memoir, though surprised and famished by this point, his family members could not withstand Azer’s integrity and fervor. His parents immediately gathered their feast and brought it to their Kurdish neighbors, whose only response to the act of generosity was to kiss and bless the young Azer.

A Silent Patriarch: Kyrillos VI (1902–1971)
Fr. Daniel Fanous

The Hebrews ate the flesh of the sacrificed animals; this was an image of our spiritual food. Now we eat, not the bodies of sacrificed animals, but the Most-pure Body and Blood of the Lord, throughout the whole earth. Therefore he who often communicates of the Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ should not require to eat any animal food. Why should I require any animal flesh when I partake of the Most-pure Body and the Most-pure Blood—these life-giving Mysteries of my God? Do they not contain sufficient life, peace, joy, spiritual and bodily strength for me? Can I not be satisfied with only vegetable and fish food, which is much lighter for me?

What is there wonderful in the Lord’s offering you His Body and Blood as food and drink? He Who gave you as food the flesh of the animals He created, has finally given you Himself as food and drink. He who fed you at your mother’s breasts now feeds you with His own Body and Blood, in order that in the same manner as with your mother’s milk—you absorbed it into yourself in your infancy certain of your mother’s qualities—her spirit—so you may absorb into yourself, together with the Body and Blood of Christ the Savior, His spirit and life. Or as previously in your infancy you were fed by your mother and lived by her—by her milk—so now, having grown up and become a sinful man, you are fed with the Blood of your Life-giver, in order that through this you may live and spiritually grow into a man of God, a holy man. In short, that as you were then your mother’s son, so now you may become God’s child, brought up and fed with His Body and Blood, and, above all, with His Spirit (for His Body and Blood are spirit and life); and that you should become an heir of the heavenly kingdom, for which reason you were created, and for which you live.

Children! remember that Jesus Christ so loves you that He calls you several times every year to His Divine and Life-giving table, at which He gives you, as food, His own Divine, Most-pure Body; and, as drink, His Divine, Most-pure, Life-giving Blood, in order that you should live not only here temporarily, but also in heaven eternally, endlessly: and therefore be very, very thankful to your Creator and Savior for His immeasurable love to you, to your parents, to your brothers and sisters, and to all men.

—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ