Being a week-and-a-half into the Fast, there's a kind of automatic tendency to look backwards, assess how we've done, and then to look forward as well. If we've slipped up at all (as I know I have), we need to guard against this assessment becoming demoralizing. We tend to say, "Oh, I've failed in the first 10 days. How will I ever make it another 30 or 40? It's just too difficult. I might as well give up."
And if we do this, we've done two rather horrible things. Firstly, we've admitted that we give Christ no room to deliver us in our need. Secondly, we give Satan free reign, declaring him to be victorious in our lives, granting him a victory over Christ (God-forbid!), giving up that which Christ has already won for us, if only we lay claim to it.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in his Epistle to Polycarp, writes, "Where the labor is great, the gain is all the greater." This isn't supposed to be easy. Our path into and through the Great Fast is intended to be a spiritual struggle. And as in any struggle, we may lose battles, but we must win the war.
Persevere, my brothers and sisters in Christ!
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