Saints on Fasting

Saint Gregory: "It is impossible to engage in spiritual conflict, without the previous subjugation of the appetite."

Saint John Chrysostom: "Fasting is the support of our soul: it gives us wings to ascend on high, and to enjoy the highest contemplation! [...] God, like an indulgent father, offers us a cure by fasting."

Saint Alphonsus De Ligouri: "He that gratifies the taste will readily indulge the other senses; for, having lost the spirit of recollection, he will easily commit faults, by indecent words and by unbecoming gestures. But the greatest evil of intemperance, is that it exposes chastity to great danger. 'Repletion of the stomach,' says St. Jerome, 'is the hotbed of lust.'

Ven. Mary of Agreda: "Temperance includes the two virtues of abstinence and sobriety...Abstinence also includes fasting. These virtues take the first place in treating of temperance; for nourishment, being necessary for the preservation of life, is among the principal objects coveted by the appetites."

Saint Basil: "Penance without fasting is useless and vain; by fasting [we] satisfy God."

Saint Catherine of Siena: "without mortifying the taste, it is impossible to preserve innocence, since it was by the indulgence of his appetite that Adam fell."

Saint Augustine: "But now the necessity of habit is sweet to me, and against this sweetness must I fight, lest I be enthralled by it. Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly bringing my body into subjection...And while health is the reason for our eating and drinking, yet a perilous delight joins itself to them as a handmaid; and indeed, she tries to take precedence in order that I may want to do for her sake what I say I want to do for health’s sake....These temptations I daily endeavor to resist and I summon thy right hand to my help and cast my perplexities onto thee."

Saint Francis De Sales: "besides the ordinary effect of fasting in raising the mind, subduing the flesh, confirming goodness, and obtaining a heavenly reward, it is also a great matter to be able to control greediness, and to keep the sensual appetites and the whole body subject to the law of the Spirit; and although we may be able to do but little, the enemy nevertheless stands more in awe of those whom he knows can fast."

Saint Peter Chrysologus: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself”

Didache: "pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you."