By Fr. Michael Psaromatis
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia
A married couple may carry a full diary, a cheerful home, a well stocked pantry, a ringing telephone, and still feel an ache within that the conveniences of life cannot satisfy. Our outward life can run smoothly while our inward life grows thin, restless, and hungry. The Church comes to that need with three labours which have steadied Christians from the beginning, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and she sets them before us with great force at the beginning of Great Lent, because our souls need to be recalled again and again to that which bears weight, gives form, and keeps the inner life from sagging under appetite, anxiety, pride, distraction, and self concern (Matthew 6:1 to 34; Tobit 12:8 to 10). These three are called pillars because a pillar upholds what would otherwise begin to lean and crack, and in just that way prayer, fasting, and almsgiving sustain the life in Christ, giving the heart its compass, the will its sobriety, and the whole self a merciful and Godward form (Matthew 6:1 to 18).
The Lord Himself places these three together in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking first of almsgiving, then of prayer, then of fasting, and after that turning to treasure, the eye, two masters, and anxiety (Matthew 6:1 to 34). This means that He leads the disciple from visible acts into hidden loyalties, from the hand and the mouth and the body into the heart itself, where every true spiritual struggle begins and every true healing must finally take root. The hand gives, the mouth prays, the body fasts, and then, slowly, the deeper things are uncovered, what the heart treasures, how the soul sees, whom the person serves, and where trust actually rests (Matthew 6:19 to 34). That movement is what gives the whole chapter its depth, because Christ is teaching far more than religious duty. He is teaching the reordering of the inner person.
Prayer without fasting easily grows weak and wanders. Fasting without prayer grows hard, dry, and self admiring. Fasting without mercy becomes severe. Almsgiving without prayer can remain on the level of decency, generosity, or philanthropy and never fully ripen into worship.
The same vision is gathered with even greater simplicity in the Book of Tobit when the Archangel Raphael says that prayer is good with fasting and almsgiving (Tobit 12:8 to 10). In that brief line the Church hears a whole way of life, prayer giving direction, fasting giving strength, and almsgiving giving warmth. Each one needs the others. Prayer without fasting easily grows weak and wanders. Fasting without prayer grows hard, dry, and self admiring. Fasting without mercy becomes severe. Almsgiving without prayer can remain on the level of decency, generosity, or philanthropy and never fully ripen into worship. The spiritual life becomes sound when these three dwell together, when the soul rises toward God, learns restraint, and opens itself in mercy all at once (Tobit 12:8 to 10; Matthew 6:1 to 18).
The old image of the field says the same thing with a different kind of clarity. Good seed scattered onto hard ground brings little fruit. The soul behaves in much the same way. A person may pray while the inner ground is crowded with indulgence, distraction, resentment, and fantasy, and so prayer struggles to take root. Yet ground that has been turned over and left empty fills quickly with weeds, and the soul does much the same when fasting is cut loose from prayer and mercy, because pride rises quickly in such soil, and judgment grows there with equal speed. The Church therefore joins these labours and keeps them joined, because a soul must be tilled, sown, and warmed if it is to bear fruit before God (Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, as quoted in the homily on the union of fasting with mercy and prayer; cf. Saint Mark the Ascetic).
Christ places almsgiving first, and there is wisdom in that order, for it is the Gospel which first opens the fist, which by habit and choice has become a closed fist, and breaks through the secret enclosure of the heart (Matthew 6:1 to 4). The currency of Orthodox life moves in far larger measures than coins. There are the groceries dropped off for a family under strain, the meal brought to the ill, the bill paid anonymously, the visit to the aged neighbour abandoned to isolation in the whirlwind of week and work, the ride given to the one no longer driving, the listening offered to someone burdened by a grief too deep to express, the prayer carried daily for someone in pain, the forgiveness given after an injury, and the willing bearing of sacrifice for another. Tobit calls such mercy “treasure laid up before God” (Tobit 4:7 to 11), and in Acts Cornelius stands as its living image on earth, whose prayers and alms went up for a memorial before God (Acts 10:1 to 4), for hidden mercy enters eternity and does not perish with time.
Life may continue outwardly with skill and order, and yet inwardly some part of it will have grown cramped, with less place for another person, less place for interruption, less room for costly love, and very often less room for God.
This first pillar reaches right into one of the deeper illnesses of modern life, for a person may guard comfort, guard time, guard reputation, guard emotional space, and then slowly lose the power to sacrifice, and the soul will contract without ever quite being aware of it. Life may continue outwardly with skill and order, and yet inwardly some part of it will have grown cramped, with less place for another person, less place for interruption, less room for costly love, and very often less room for God. Almsgiving breaks that enclosure because it opens the heart again, teaching the Christian that the neighbour is found at the centre of spiritual life rather than at its outskirts, and that Christ is met precisely there, in the forgotten, the hungry, the burdened, the wounded, and the inconvenient (Matthew 25:31 to 46). Saint Cyprian says that prayer and fasting gain greater strength when they are joined to mercy and good works, while Saint Gregory the Theologian places mercy alongside prayer, tears, and ascetic toil in the long labour of repentance. Mercy enlarges the human person. A guarded heart contracts.
Prayer is that pillar of communion that rises toward heaven and belongs to the whole being. It is deeper than words, deeper than mood or momentary religious feeling, deeper than the associations of childhood, and deeper even than the needs of heart or home that often drive us to our knees. It is the gathering together of our mind, our will, our affections, our memory, our griefs, our longings, the whole of our inner life, in the presence of the Lord. That is why Jesus leads His disciples away from the crowd, into the room, into secrecy, and there gives them the Lord’s Prayer, because prayer rests on our personal relation of truth before God and not on display before men (Matthew 6:5 to 15). The whole Christian life is contained in those few holy petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, the sanctification of the name of God, the coming of the Kingdom, daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance, and submission to the will of God (Matthew 6:9 to 13). Prayer restores the centre of life. A person may answer the demands of the day from morning until night and still feel inwardly homeless. Prayer gives the heart a place to stand.
The tradition speaks soberly here. Prayer grows through faithfulness more than mood. The heart must be gathered again and again from drift, noise, fantasy, fatigue, self excuse, and inward laziness and placed before God. Sometimes prayer comes with warmth. Sometimes with heaviness. Sometimes with tears. Sometimes with dryness. What matters is the returning (Luke 18:1; Romans 12:12). A small daily rule matters precisely because it teaches fidelity before sweetness and obedience before consolation. A father who rises a little earlier to stand at the icon corner before the house is awake, a mother lighting the lamp in the evening and gathering the children for the Lord’s Prayer, a young adult who keeps ten faithful minutes each morning with Psalm 50, the Gospel of the day, and the Jesus Prayer, an older parishioner who carries the names of the living and the departed before the icons day after day, all of this slowly rebuilds the inner room of the soul. Prayer also enters the passing moments of a day, the doxology before driving, the whispered “Lord have mercy” when irritation rises, the Jesus Prayer in the kitchen, the short pause before answering sharply, the thanksgiving before sleep (1 Thessalonians 5:17). In this way prayer becomes the breath of a life rather than a compartment within it.
The Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian gives this whole labour its true climate, asking for chastity, humility, patience, and love, and asking also for the grace to see one’s own sins and to refrain from judging the brother (Matthew 7:1 to 5). In a few lines it gives the whole sober warmth of Orthodox repentance. It strips away self importance without crushing the soul. It teaches self knowledge without despair and tenderness without weakness. If a person begins to live even a little within that prayer, whether through the Psalms read with attention, the Lord’s Prayer offered with attention, the Jesus Prayer repeated with sobriety, or the evening prayers said steadily in the home, the atmosphere within begins to change, bringing calm with vigilance, softness with strength, and compunction with peace (Psalm 50; Luke 18:13).
Fasting is the pillar that trains desire, and because it touches the body it has a plain and searching honesty about it. It begins with food, and yet reveals so much more than food. Deny the body easy satisfaction and irritation rises, vanity rises, self will rises, the memory clutches at injuries, the tongue stands ready, the appetite looks for compensation, and one learns what is living inside. In that revealing there is already mercy, for the Christian has begun to see clearly the places where healing is needed. The Orthodox fast then penetrates far beyond the plate into the whole person, becoming a fast from anger, sharp speech, vanity, resentment, friction, complaint, self importance, and the inward need to have our own way (Matthew 6:16 to 18; James 1:19 to 20). Bit by bit, it becomes a steady reality, a real crucifixion of the old self by which we are led more deeply into the Cross of Christ (Galatians 5:24).
Scripture witnesses to fasting with breadth and consistency. David says that he humbled his soul with fasting (Psalm 35:13). Judith fasted through the days of her widowhood and shone with holy courage (Judith 8:6). Anna served God with fasting and prayer night and day (Luke 2:36 to 38). The Ninevites turned from evil through fasting and supplication and found mercy (Jonah 3:5 to 10). Saint Paul disciplined his body and brought it into subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27). Christ Himself entered the wilderness and fasted forty days before the public beginning of His ministry (Matthew 4:1 to 2). The witness is one. Fasting belongs to repentance, vigilance, spiritual combat, and readiness for God (Joel 2:12 to 13).
This is why the Lord speaks of prayer and fasting as arms, saying that a certain kind comes out only by prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29). The life of the Christian is a life of struggle and healing, of warfare and liberation. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:10 to 18). The soul needs arms for that struggle. Prayer proclaims the true Lordship. Fasting weakens the false usurper at the table. Together they begin to free the person who has long been ruled inwardly by desire. A husband can fast from the need to win every argument. A wife can fast from answering wound with wound. A parent can fast from exasperation and let there be room for patience before words leave the mouth. A worker can fast from complaint and gossip. A parishioner can fast from criticism and the secret sweetness of severity. A whole household can treat hunger as a bell for prayer and let each discomfort become a turning of the heart toward God. Then fasting begins to move from rule to reality.
The Church refuses to separate fasting from mercy because she knows that a thinner plate and a harder heart yield scant fruit, while a simpler table joined to compassion shines brightly before God.
The Prophet Isaiah gives the fast pleasing to God in its full stature, the loosing of the bonds of wickedness, the freeing of the oppressed, the sharing of bread with the hungry, the receiving of the poor, and the clothing of the naked, and only then do light and healing break forth (Isaiah 58:6 to 10). The Church therefore refuses to separate fasting from mercy because she knows that a thinner plate and a harder heart yield scant fruit, while a simpler table joined to compassion shines brightly before God. Saint Peter Chrysologus states the same truth with great power when he declares that fasting is the soul of prayer and mercy the life of fasting (Saint Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 43). Direction comes from prayer. Strength comes from fasting. Warmth comes from almsgiving.
Then Christ takes the soul still further inward, for once He has put right how we give, how we pray, and how we fast, He asks what it is which has seized control of the heart itself: “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). The real question is one of attachment, of what governs the heart, whether it be riches, comfort, admiration, power, prestige, or the desperate need for reassurance. Almsgiving strikes at that attachment by training the heart to let go. Prayer strikes at it by bringing the soul back to God. Fasting strikes at it by teaching desire that it is not the lord of our life. In this way a man learns a new loyalty and a new freedom.
Then the Lord speaks of the eye as the lamp of the body, and here again He presses beneath externals into the heart of perception itself, the inward way in which we see God, self, neighbour, and circumstance (Matthew 6:22 to 23). If that eye is single, the whole of life is filled with light. If it is diseased, a gloom spreads secretly over the soul. Prayer makes the eye clear. Fasting makes it sober. Almsgiving makes it warm. A darkened inner eye does the reverse and begins to give pretty names to the passions which it disguises as virtues, calling selfishness prudence, pride confidence, control responsibility, and revenge discernment, until the soul gradually grows dim while imagining itself still in the light (Isaiah 5:20).
Then comes the word about two masters, and here the whole struggle of the heart is laid bare, for the human person is created for unity, one heart, one love, one Lord, yet sin fragments the soul so that one part seeks God while another part clings to comfort, approval, reputation, safety, or pleasure. It is that inward division that produces much of the fatigue, the tension, and the hidden exhaustion so many people carry just below the surface. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving gather the person again into simplicity. Prayer declares who is Lord. Fasting weakens the claims of appetite. Almsgiving transfers treasure away from the self and toward God. Now the soul begins to stand under one rule instead of trying to manage many competing demands (Matthew 6:24; James 1:8).
From there Christ speaks of worry and divine providence, and in this part of the Gospel the fruit of the three pillars is especially apparent, because prayer restores trust through communion, fasting teaches discipline and detachment, and almsgiving loosens the grip of possessions, and the person begins to live less through anxious circling and more in confidence in the Father. Anxiety is the heart stretched thin across too many false supports and too much inward clutching at control. Christ answers it with birds and lilies and daily bread and the Kingdom, drawing the soul back again toward the Father who knows what is needed, and teaching it to seek first the Kingdom and receive the rest in a spirit of trust (Matthew 6:25 to 34). Here too stands the prayer of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, in which we ask peace for whatever the coming day may bring, and commend all to the will of God. That is the spirit of providence, the soul opening, yielding, and learning peace (Philippians 4:6 to 7; 1 Peter 5:7).
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, practised in humility, obedience, repentance, and love, find their true shape within the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church
These pillars need an Orthodox frame, lest they collapse. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, practised in humility, obedience, repentance, and love, find their true shape within the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church (Acts 2:42; Hebrews 10:24 to 25). They are deepened in confession, nourished in the Divine Liturgy, sealed in Holy Communion, steadied in the cycle of the services, illumined in the hearing of the Scriptures, and guided in the common life of the Body of Christ (John 6:53 to 56; James 5:16; 2 Timothy 3:16 to 17). There, within that life, they become grace bearing and life giving. There, they cease to be private achievements and become communion. There, they cease to be performance and become offering. There, they cease to be merely moral effort and become the healing work of Christ in His people.
A beautiful image gathers the whole vision, the image of the Cross, because prayer ascends like the vertical beam and unites earth with heaven, the soul with God, while fasting and almsgiving stretch like the horizontal beam through discipline, mercy, love, and service, and where prayer and fasting and almsgiving meet, the life of the Christian becomes cruciform, a life of union with God and of self offering to others (Matthew 16:24; Matthew 6:1 to 18). That image is no mere illustration. It is description. Prayer gives light to fasting and almsgiving. Fasting gives strength to prayer and almsgiving. Almsgiving gives warmth to prayer and fasting.
Here again the reality appears. A family may practise economy in diet and find that what is saved becomes relief for another household. A husband and wife may agree to fast from angry and unkind speech and from this peace may return to the home. A schoolgirl may keep ten faithful minutes every morning in prayer, and after a while the room of her heart may begin to clear. A parishioner may carry food to a bedridden neighbour, bring bread to another household, prepare meals for the sick, or quietly pay a butcher’s bill. A wounded heart may speak the great word, forgiveness, and discover that forgiveness is among the deepest forms of almsgiving (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:12 to 14). It is on this concrete ground that the Christian life is built, the hidden obediences, repeated day by day, away from applause, offered with reverence (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18).
So the Church sets these pillars before us every day, and at the beginning of Great Lent she calls us around them again with renewed clarity, for prayer teaches us to stand before God, fasting teaches us to rule desire before desire rules us, and almsgiving teaches us to love concretely, humbly, and sacrificially. The hand gives. The mouth prays. The body fasts. The heart treasures rightly. The eye fills with light. The soul serves one Lord. Trust grows. Peace deepens. The person becomes simpler, warmer, stronger, and more transparent to grace. In this way the whole house of the soul stands (Matthew 6:1 to 34; Tobit 12:8 to 10; Isaiah 58:6 to 10).
