Ocular Fasting

In Lent it is customary for St Thomas Christians to fast chiefly by abstaining from culinary dainties that has meat, fish, egg or milk as ingredients.

No surprise the Colonizers called us ‘friends of fasting!’

It is a wholesome thing that this ‘cake of custom’ has many buyers these days!

However, I speak here of a different fasting: fasting of the eyes!

During this Lent let us make a covenant with our eyes as Job did (Job 31:1).

Eyes can cause sin (Mk 9:47).

Jesus told that if our eyes became a bawd to the soul, it was better to be blind!

St Peter says that the eyes are “constantly on the lookout for a woman” (2Pet.2:14).

Oh true, chastity is first lost in the eye!

The heart could become a brothel according Jesus (Mat. 5:28) if eyes are not controlled.

Of all human members the eye is the most insatiable.

As St John says the world never lacks in “enticements” (1 Jn 2:16).

And the eyes are never tired of seeing them!

The eyes are the greediest of all human parts.

It is easy to fill the hungry belly, not the eyes!

The more it sees the more it wants to wander.

Our eyes need more the rein than the glass!

I think the ‘eye’ could be one of the “daughters of the leech” about which wise Solomon spoke (Pro. 30:15).

The perpetual and universal cry of the fastidious eyes is “Give” “Give.”

It is not only the hell, barren womb, the earth and fire that never say “enough” (Pro. 30:16) but also the eyes do so.

Eyes are seldom satisfied!

Hence, keep an eye on your eyes!

Dr John Kudiyiruppil