Fasting on Fridays and Spiritual Warfare

by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Live the Fast Bread Rolls

As a young priest I used to fast on Fridays.

This was  a complete fast. Nothing but water from after supper on Thursday until breakfast on Saturday.

It took a couple of weeks to get used to it, but once my system was engaged in the new routine it wasn’t so difficult.

I took on this form of asceticism because it felt like the right thing to do. Over the years I eased off and now I fast on Fridays by maybe skipping lunch or only eating fruit.

I was struggling with periods of depression at the time and I found that, by fasting on Fridays I had given myself one day in the week which was a “down” day. It was like I was allowing my body, mind and spirit to go into the dark places and deal with what was there. I was going into the cave to fight the dragons.

By giving my system one day a week to deal with the dark I discovered that the bouts of depression lessened at other times. It was as if  there was some darkness that had to be faced and by giving my spirit and mind permission to “go into the dark” there was what turned out to be a healthy outlet. Eventually the depression disappeared.

Read the rest at patheos.com


Editor's note:  Warriors, we are engaged in spiritual warfare.  Perhaps fasting could be a part of our arsenal?