The Deep Meaning of Fasting Gethsemane and the Problem of Suffering - 1 - Matthew the Poor The Deep Meaning of Fasting Fasting and the imitation of Christ1 The Church imitates Christ. All that Christ has done the Church also does; He becomes its life....
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The Deep Meaning of Fasting Gethsemane and the Problem of Suffering - 1 - Matthew the Poor The Deep Meaning of Fasting Fasting and the imitation of Christ1 The Church imitates Christ. All that Christ has done the Church also does; He becomes its life. Christ’s call to Matthew (“Follow me”) was intended by Him to mean “Take my life for you.” The Church has adopted this call as a scheme of its own. Fasting, in the life and works of Christ, ranks as the first response to the act of unction and of being filled with the Holy Spirit. It represents the first battle in which Christ did away with His adversary, the prince of this world. In His forty days’ experience of absolute fasting, Christ laid down for us the basis of our dealings with our enemy—along with all his allurements and vain illusions. “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” (Mk. 9:29). For when a person enters into prayerful fasting, Satan departs from the flesh. As the Son of God, Christ did not need
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