Chapter X.
The mystical table is prepared with fasting. It is discussed morally and mystically what hunger makes fasting acceptable and what is meant by the statement: When you fast, anoint your head.
33. The mystical table is also compared to fasting: that table, of which David says: You have prepared a table before me against them that afflict me (Psalm 23:5). This table is acquired at the price of hunger: and that cup, by inebriating sobriety, is sought by the thirst for heavenly sacraments. For the Lord said: Come to the water, all you that thirst, and you that have no money, make haste, buy, and eat (Isaiah 55:1). And elsewhere He says: 'Behold, those who serve Me will eat, but you will be hungry. Behold, those who serve Me will drink, but you will be thirsty.' (Isaiah, 65:13). Who are you except those who have drunk before? Of whom it was said above: 'You have prepared a table for demons and filled a cup of fortune.' (Ibid., 11). Therefore, if holy fasts lead us to that venerable table, if by this hunger we obtain eternal treasures, why do we doubt the things that are in human use, since even this fasting makes them sweeter to us?
34. However, not every hunger makes an acceptable fast, but the hunger that is undertaken out of fear of God. Consider: Lent is observed throughout all days except for Saturday and Sunday. This fast concludes with the Lord's Easter. Now the day of resurrection has come, the Elect are baptized, they come to the altar, they receive the sacrament, the thirsty drink from the whole veins. Each one rightly says, having been restored, 'You have prepared a table before me.' . . . and how delightful is your intoxicating cup (Psalm 22, 5)! However, it is not only hunger that is sought, but also the full discipline of fasting. Moreover, it is said to others: 'In the days of your fasts, you find your own desires and provoke all who are subject to you. Do you fast for judgments and quarrels and strike with your fists? Why is this fast chosen by me, so that your voices are heard in clamor? This is not the fast that I have chosen, to humble oneself as a man; and even if you bend your neck like a circle, you still spread ashes and a hairshirt, and you will not call this a pleasing fast.' I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord (Isaiah 58:3 et seq.). What kind of fast is condemned, we have heard; now let us hear what kind is approved. But undo all the chains of injustice, untie the chords of binding obligations, let the oppressed go free, and break every unjust yoke. Share your food with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, cover them, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh and blood. You see what kind and form is fasting, what disposition of the mind; that you may be empty for prayer, and meditate on the law of God day and night.
35. The very appearance of the body is full of dignity, with no hint of the flush of drunkenness on the cheeks that would offend the gaze of onlookers, but the countenance shines with a chaste pallor, the speech more serious, the eyes more modest, the steps more steady and measured; for often the movements of the soul are revealed by a more disturbed gait. The expression is more intense, a certain arbiter of one's thoughts, and a silent interpreter of the heart; so that neither does it conceal sadness, nor does it burst into immediate laughter. For you should not consider this a superfluous admonition of ours; since Wisdom says in the Gospel: 'When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, sad' (Matthew 6:16). He called them hypocrites, because they put on the appearance of another person through simulation; just as those who sing tragedies on stage, they provoke their own emotions according to the words of the characters they portray, so that they may either become angry, or mourn, or rejoice. These individuals strive to appear as though they are fasting, desiring to gain approval more from people than from God, just as the Jews did.
36. And therefore it is said to us: But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to fast, but to your Father who is in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will repay you (Matthew 6:17-18). What does it mean to anoint your head? But even the indulgent say: Let us fill ourselves with wine and ointments. For they anoint themselves with ointment, who seek the favor of bodily odor. But those ointments are accustomed to stir up the allurements of desire. There is another ointment of sobriety, of which the Church says to its spouse: Your name is poured out ointment (Cant. I, 2): another oil by which the limbs of the soul and certain members grow fat. Hence David says: You have anointed my head with oil (Psal. XXII, 5). And this is the oil of gladness, with which Christ was anointed by God the Father, so that he might excel above all his companions. This commands us to anoint our head, so that all feigned sadness may be covered with the oil of joy; lest you appear to be selling your fasting to men, lest you appear to be saddened about the salvation of your soul. For no one who is sad is crowned, no one who is sorrowful triumphs. Therefore, anoint your head, where the senses of the wise are; for the eyes of the wise are in their head. You are called to the mysteries, and you do not know: you learn when you come. And remember that: As the ointment on the head, which descends to the beard of Aaron (Ps. CXXXII, 2), then you know what it is: Anoint your head: how you may please God, so that He may reveal His sacraments to you, and grant you spiritual grace.
37. And there is another mystical head. What is that? Listen: The head of a woman is the man; and the head of the man is Christ (I Cor. XI, 3). Send the ointment into Christ, send it also into His head. His head is God. That woman, bearing the type of the Church, who sent the ointment into His head, confessed His divinity; and she who sent it to His feet, confessed His passion. Both are praised. And you, do something for which you may be praised, for which you may receive the forgiveness of sins (Matth. XXVI, 10). Wash your face, cleanse your sinful soul, cleanse your conscience. For the face is often the index of the conscience, and silent speech of the mind, when we are either stung by sin or joyful in integrity. Do not exterminate this face, wash it, and wash away all the filth of your conscience. He exterminates his own face, who carries one thing in his heart and pretends another outside. Let us not, like in some kind of theatrical performance, cover ourselves up: let what is inside shine on the outside, let what is outside work within. No one should include fault in fasting; let them bear innocence purely. For fasting is the slayer of faults.