Phillips Brooks.
SEPTEMBER 25
"It makes me half afraid, half angry, to see the formal, mechanical way in which people do what they call their 'Lenten Penances,' and then rush off, only with increased ardour, to their Easter festivities. Literal fasting does not suit me—it makes me irritable and uncomfortable, and certainly does not spiritualise me; so I have always tried to keep my Lents in the nobler and more healthful spirit of Isaiah lviii. I have kept them but poorly, after all; still, I am sure that is the true way of keeping them."
Letters from Bishop Fraser's Lancashire Life, Archdeacon Diggle.
"God does not call us to give up some sin or some harmful self-indulgence in Lent that we may resume it at Easter."
The Guided Life, Canon Body.
SEPTEMBER 26
"Fasting comes by nature when a man is sad, and it is in consequence the natural token of sadness: when a man is very sad, for the loss of relations or the like, he loses all inclination for food. But every outward sign that can be displayed at will is liable to abuse, and so men sometimes fasted when they were not really sad, but when it was decorous to appear so. Moreover a kind of merit came to be attached to fasting as betokening sorrow for transgressions; and at last it came to be regarded as a sort of self-punishment which it was thought the Almighty would accept in lieu of inflicting punishment Himself. Our Lord does not decry stated fasts or any other Jewish practices, they had their uses and would last their times; only He points men to the underlying truth which was at the bottom of the ordinance."