Fasting
What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? What happens when you stop feeding everything else?
Scripture
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Matthew 5:6
“Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness… and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” — Matthew 4:1–2
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” — Psalm 42:1–2
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” — John 6:35
“Walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.” — Galatians 5:16
The Opposite Passion · Gluttony Gastrimargia
The anxious urge to overconsume and hoard — to secure yourself by feeding yourself.
Gluttony is not only about food. The desert fathers saw it as the reflex to soothe every discomfort by consuming something: snacks, screens, more, now. Fasting is the direct attack — you feel the craving, you do not obey it, and you do not die. ‘Hunger and thirst for righteousness’ aims that same engine at God: ‘they shall be filled.’
From American History · July 20, 1620 · The Pilgrims
Before the Mayflower sailed, pastor John Robinson called his congregation to a day of fasting and prayer to seek direction. They had reason to be afraid: of the thirty-six hundred settlers sent to Jamestown between 1619 and 1622, three thousand died. They fasted first — not to earn an answer, but to find out what they actually wanted.
“Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us.” — Ezra 8:21
Why this verse? It was the sermon text. Before the Pilgrims sailed, John Robinson proclaimed ‘a day of solemn humiliation’ and preached Ezra 8:21 — a fast at the river Ahava before a dangerous road home.
From the Fathers
“Fasting is the support of our soul; it gives us wings to mount up high.”
— John Chrysostom · Homilies on Fasting (c. 347–407)
“Resist the beginnings; the remedy comes too late when the evil has gained strength by long delay.”
— Thomas à Kempis · The Imitation of Christ (1380–1471)
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
— C. S. Lewis · Mere Christianity (1898–1963)
“More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.”
— Richard Foster · Celebration of Discipline (b. 1942)
“Do not look for pleasure, but turn away from the things that satisfy your senses and your mind, and look for God in hunger and thirst and darkness, through the deserts of the spirit.”
— Thomas Merton · New Seeds of Contemplation (1915–1968)
Talk About It
- What’s one craving that feels like it runs you — that you obey the second you feel it?
- Most things you really want never actually satisfy you. Why do you think that is?
- When have you done something ‘fun’ that left you emptier afterward, like Ignatius’s daydreams?
- What’s one thing you could fast from for a few days — and what might that teach you?
The Practice of the Week · Fast From One Thing
Choose one thing to fast from this week — a game, social media, sweets, or a meal if that is wise for you. When the craving hits, do not obey it: breathe, and pray one line — ‘Jesus, I’m hungrier for you than for this.’
- Pick ONE thing to fast from — real, but doable.
- When the craving hits: breathe, and pray one line.
- Notice what the wanting is really about.
- Each night, name one consolation and one desolation.
Each day: A growl, a craving, a reach for the phone — let each one become a tiny prayer: “I am hungrier for you.”
May your hungers stop ruling you, and may they all begin to point you home.