O Jesus, with the start of the fast, we feel as though heaven were calling our names in a whisper. We feel as though time were casting off its noise, and You alone remain, a quiet light in the depth of the heart.
O Jesus, You have let us experience in the Church that the fast is not deprivation, nor mere abstaining from food. The fast is longing, and a drawing near to Your face. In the fast we do not mutter a prayer. In the fast we become a prayer.
This is why Your children in the Church have loved the fast, for they have tasted its mystery: that when You take from our hands the little, You fill our hearts with the much.
O Jesus, we fast because we seek You. We drag our weary hearts to Your light, and say: "Thy face, O Lord, do I seek" (Psalm 27:8).
So we enter the holy fast as a lover enters a long-awaited meeting. And if the passions pull us down to the earth, do You lift our gaze upward, where Your face is the desire of life.
O Jesus, You are the beauty that does not wither.
You are the love that does not pass away. You are the presence that does not vanish.
Everything is perishable, except Your look upon us; except Your love for us; except that moment in which the heart melts in Your light, and forgets the world, and remembers You alone.
Delight us with Your beauty, O Lord, and enchant us with Your presence, until the fast becomes a hidden feast in our depths, and You alone become the fullness of our hearts.