“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” — 1 Corinthians 6:19

Our bodies are not obstacles to faith; they are instruments of it. Through our hands we serve, through our lips we bless, through our knees we kneel, through our eyes we behold. The body is the living altar where devotion becomes visible. When we fast from food and drink, we discipline appetite. But true fasting must also move inward. It is possible to deny the stomach while still feeding pride, lust, anger, and judgment. The deeper fast calls every sense into surrender.

Let the eyes fast. Let them fast from glancing at what diminishes the soul. Let them turn away from comparison, envy, impurity, and indifference. And more than abstaining, let them learn compassion. Every glance can either reduce a person to an object or honor them as an image-bearer of God. To fast with the eyes is to look slowly, gently, mercifully. It is to see pain and not look away. It is to notice the overlooked.

As Saint Ephrem the Syrian writes, “Make my senses gates of righteousness, O Lord, that no unclean thing may enter.” The senses are gates; what we allow through them shapes the heart within.

This season, do not fast outwardly alone. Invite our eyes, our thoughts, our reactions into the discipline. When the body aligns with the Spirit, faith becomes embodied love. And when even our glances are purified, the world begins to look different—because we are seeing it through Christ.