Fast With The Heart Quotes

“Fasting and prayer are a means through which we open ourselves to God, Who can cleanse us of all the sins of our past. Alone we cannot help ourselves and without prayer and fasting, we cannot recognize the evil that wants to destroy us. Preparation of hearts for cooperation with God takes place in prayer and fasting.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Prayer and fasting free man from incorrect relationships with himself, with God, with others and especially with material things.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Whoever longs for God will have time for prayer; he will seek God and will find Him. Wherever this longing does not exist, there will be no prayer and no joyful anticipation of God or a meeting with Him.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“I am convinced that a person is not capable of renunciation but only of an exchange. Through fasting and prayer we discover ‘what is better’ so we can easily leave behind what is not good or is not as good. This is why we must never observe the life experience of saints and mystics from the standpoint of renunciation but of an exchange. It sounds unpleasant for us ‘normal’ Christians for someone to renounce their family, possessions and everything else, if we do not see that there has been an exchange for something better. It is particularly because of this that there are fewer and fewer Christians who are prepared to follow Christ radically. They do not see an exchange for what they are renouncing in the way Jesus Himself spoke of. (cf. Mk 10,28)”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“God made man’s heart for Himself and it cannot be happy if God is not in the first place. It is sufficient for each person to ask himself what influences his concrete decisions in order to know what place God has in his life. When God becomes the measure of all decisions and of every action, then it is possible to speak about God being in the first place.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“If a person remains only on the level of prayer, selfishness and pride can easily sneak into the spirit of prayer and prayer intentions. Even though we say, “Father, Your Will be done,” we, none the less, expect things to be as we want them to be. This is why it can easily happen that a person who prays measures God’s love, mercy and goodness according to what he has received or did not receive, in relation to what he prayed for. In this way, it is possible for an entire life of prayer to remain only a battle between man’s will and God’s Will.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Even though it is difficult to be silent, as the seminar experience confirms, it is even more difficult to enter into interior silence – to silence the imagination, memory and feelings – and to create a new space for meeting with God. Only when interior silence is realized can it be said that a part of purification has taken place and that a new relationship with self, others and God can begin.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“By nature, man is a pilgrim who seeks God in everything as an answer to his questions. It is not good for him to permit himself to be imprisoned or stopped on the way by anything of this world. That is why, he must remain free. He must not permit himself to be imprisoned by the world to become an addict. When a Christian decides to, and does, fast he witnesses to his faith in the ultimate reality that lasts forever. To fast means to free himself from things of this world and not to permit worldly realities to cloud his sight of what is eternal.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“I experienced a similar delight when I understood that we are called to read the Sacred Scripture every day. From the Altar, the parish priest asked us to promise then and there to do this. True delight overcame me. I decided to begin reading the Sacred Scripture. It was the daily reading of It that started to change my life.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“The goal of a Christian life is to become similar to Christ - to become completely like Him. We are called to accept and to try to live in a way that helps us truly realize this. Fasting and prayer, in themselves, do not have meaning. Their importance is only in relation to reaching a goal; and a Christian who wants to become similar to Christ must have absolutely concrete goals that he must accomplish.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Stillness and silence are entered into with two questions in mind, ‘Where is my word conceived?’ and ‘How is it born?’ If a word is conceived in anger, resentment, hatred, jealousy, envy, sorrow, depression, addiction, selfishness, pride or in some other negative environment, then it is a word that insults, humiliates, brings lack of peace and discomfort and offends the hearts of others.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Fasting makes man capable of waiting - not to grow tired of waiting. At the same time, fasting becomes a direct witness to the expectation of the eternal feast in the Kingdom of God. Everything written in the book of Revelations will be accomplished.

'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. ' (Rv 3:20)”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“when something is good, you have to persevere in the good and not think: God does not see me, He is not listening, He is not helping.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“Fasting and prayer are the best means in the battle against Satan. Only by prayer and fasting can Satan be forced to withdraw from his evil plans and be distanced from the faithful in general and from this place. Jesus said to the disciples that there are kinds of evil spirits which cannot be cast out except by prayer and fasting. (Mk 9, 29)”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“While the Second Vatican Council calls everyone to return to ‘the source’, we must admit that we have not discovered fasting but, instead, the opposite has happened. In the past decades, fasting has been reduced to the least possible measure – to two days a year: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“The Church tradition knows fasting especially connected with the Eucharist and at times such as Lent and in preparation for feast days.  This tradition has been kept for many centuries although recently all traces of fasting have nearly disappeared in the Church. Only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday have remained but even these two days of fasting have lost their real practice and true meaning.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart

“The purpose of fasting is not to deny ourselves sustenance or to feel hunger, but to grow in the ‘inner freedom’ necessary to be open to God’s graces and love.”
― Slavko Barbaric, Fast With The Heart