NOTES for Zec 8:19-23

How accustomed we are to thinking that fasting is something heavy and dark, something we have to get through so that afterward we can rejoice more in the bright Resurrection of Christ. Even the priests' vestments are dark and the veil in the church is black, mourning-colored. Of course, fasting is pain. But on the other hand, it is easy for us here to fall into a somewhat childish attitude toward fasting. Easter is not candy given for good behavior during the fast. But fasting, people will say, takes so much of what is familiar from us! Yet is it not a joy to give something out of love for God? If not, then it is still too early to fast. For fasting - fasting itself, as the greatest spiritual joy - must be earned (precisely fasting, not Easter, because Easter joy is given to all "who fasted and who did not fast," as it says in the catechetical homily of our father among the saints John Chrysostom).

This joy is probably what the prophet Zechariah speaks of in the words: "the fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall become joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah." When we feel exactly this during the fast, no matter how hard it is, then we have reached something true. But what about, people will say, the Cross, the nails, the spear? Yes, but they are for the sake of life.

On the other hand, people very often say that during a fast they feel a special vigor of spirit, and then Easter comes and there is nothing but slackness and fatigue, like a runner who has run a marathon. There are many fine distinctions here.