“And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ ...Jesus replied, ‘this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.’” (Matthew 17:18)
Prayer and fasting go together. They are two parts of complete self-control, which are necessary for unconditional faith. We fast so that our prayer is free from all that comes between God and ourselves. Food is only part of it. To eat minimally and only a select diet is to practice freedom from craving. Beyond yearning for meat and dairy products, one experiences the bliss of not wanting. Abbots give angel names to monastics because they share in some way the independence of the bodiless powers.
Faith is more than belief. We believe in God. We are assured that the Lord is Creator of all that exists, that nothing is accidental, and the heavenly Father is aware of even the minutia of the atoms. To have faith in Him is to trust that the Father has entrusted the Son of God Jesus Christ with power to work miracles in the world in the Church and through those gifted with the grace to perform miracles.
Fasting from eating and drinking extends to liberation from sexual urges as well as the need to control a discussion or other more subtle enhancements of the ego. To surrender without conditions to the Spirit is to unite with the Father in Christ and have no desires or needs other than the joy of union with divinity. Prayer then ascends far above asking for something from God, even for asking on behalf of others, as we learn from the episode above. To cast out demons from another requires an inner self-cleansing, or better stated, union with Christ Who expunges the demons from us. We then are set free from Satan’s usually effective weapon—to turn our own latent self-interest against us. He will whisper: It’s for your own good. But through prayer and fasting we have no more a will or need separate from Christ in us. We are not controlled by our thoughts, because we have offered our will as a gift to God—returned it to Him so that we are in tune with the divine will. We have crucified self-interest and put God’s interest in its place.
Fasting is thought of as negative—suffering caused by abstinence from what is considered tasteful and pleasant to the senses. Non-Christians think it foolish, and even traditional Christian communions treat it as passé, not necessary for salvation. Orthodox Christians take pleasure in tallying up all that is unnecessary and frivolous—the list of what one can do without and yet lead a life of fulfillment and happiness. To adorn ourselves and our homes with the latest styles and fashions is to be enslaved to the advertisement world. To see what others “have to have” and not be touched by such craving is a special joy. Read an excerpt from the renowned letter to Diognetus, by an unknown author A.D. 100-150:
“Christians live in their own countries as though they were passing through….They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven….They live in poverty, but they enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything.”
Notice the liberation from normal cravings many might call natural human requirements. Note also the sheer joy that comes through that definition of what a Christian is like. To share the spirit of that early writer is to live as though nothing is permanent in this world. We have visas to earth, but our passports are issued from the Kingdom of God.