Fasting for the Benefit of the Holy Souls

An excerpt from "Charity for the Suffering Souls" by Rev. John A. Nageleisen


Everybody in this world experiences in himself two conflicting powers, which are described by St Paul as follows: "I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man: but I see another law in my member, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members" (Rom 7:22-23) Reason, and religion demand that in this combat of the "inward man" we decide in his favor against sin. Our soul is immortal, the breath of God, His image. Our body is a handful of clay, soon to moulder in the grave. What does it matter if the body, a food for worms, be made to suffer, if only the immortal soul be saved? Of what consequence is it, if the body die, if only the soul lives? St Paul was the apostle of the gentiles, a light of the world, a vessel of election; nevertheless he felt t a necessary duty to bring his body into subjection.  He says, "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached