We ask God to forgive us for what we have made of ourselves, and seek improvement from Him. The program for change follows the series: fear, hope, love. Fear inspires action to escape from what is feared, and this brings with it the hope of success. Hope intensifies as yearning and blossoms as love. There are many examples of this pattern. Example 1. Fear of God is fear of being displeasing to Him. To escape what is feared we try to do what is pleasing to Him. Regardless of our failures, we have hope in His grace. Our hope in His grace intensifies as yearning for His graciousness, and blossoms as love of Him. Example 2. We fear our flaws. This prompts action to overcome them, such as fasting, in hope that by His will we may improve. The intensification of the hope is yearning for improvement. By His grace we then find blossoming in our hearts the love of the virtues.
Fasting is an old method for improvement. Forms of fasting are found in all the major religions. Fasting is often connected with alms giving. Both are ways of giving up the base aspects of one’s nature. One seeks to shift one’s affections from the base to the noble. The shift is one from base powers to noble powers. We find the ability to overcome the hold that hunger, thirst, and lust for sex or money or power have over our hearts. We weaken ourselves by fasting to empower ourselves. So, a kind of lust for power remains, but it is the paradoxical lust for power over our own inclinations, which power is freedom. Freedom is freedom from the abuse of power.
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