You get back up. That’s it.
Fasting isn’t a test you pass or fail to earn your salvation. It’s medicine. When you skip a dose of medicine or take it wrong, you don’t throw out the whole prescription and declare yourself hopeless. You take the next dose and keep going.
The Church gives us fasting as a tool to heal our passions and reorder our loves. We fast from meat, dairy, oil, and wine during certain seasons not because God hates cheeseburgers but because we need to learn we’re not controlled by our appetites. It’s training. St. John Chrysostom said the fast should be kept “not by the mouth alone but also by the lips, tongue, hands, feet and all the members of our body.” If you ate a breakfast taco with egg and cheese on a Wednesday morning but spent the day speaking kindly and praying more, you’re closer to the point than someone who kept the dietary rules perfectly while gossiping and nursing grudges.
But let’s be honest. Most of us do fail at the food part too. You’re at a work lunch and forget it’s Friday. Your mother-in-law serves her famous pot roast during Lent and you don’t want to make a scene. You’re exhausted from a night shift at the plant and grab whatever’s easy. You just don’t feel like fasting today, so you don’t.
What then?
First, don’t despair. Despair is worse than the failure itself. The enemy wants you to think you’ve blown it completely, that you might as well give up on the whole Orthodox thing because you can’t even manage a simple fast. That’s a lie. The spiritual life isn’t about perfection. It’s about getting up every time you fall.
Second, confess it if it’s weighing on you. Not every missed fast day requires confession, but if you broke the fast through gluttony, defiance, or laziness and you know it, bring it to your priest. He’s heard it all before. Confession isn’t about groveling. It’s about honesty and receiving the grace to try again. Your priest can also help you figure out if you’re being too hard on yourself or if there’s a real pattern you need to address.
Third, talk to your priest about economia. That’s the Church’s pastoral discretion to adapt the rules for your actual circumstances. If you’re pregnant, nursing, diabetic, working nights, or dealing with an eating disorder, the standard fasting rules might not apply to you in the standard way. The Church is a hospital, not a courtroom. Your priest can help you figure out what fasting looks like for you right now, in this season of your life, with your actual body and actual schedule.
Some people in Southeast Texas work rotating shifts offshore or at the refineries. You might be up for 24 hours straight, then crash, then do it again. Fasting looks different for you than for someone with a 9-to-5 desk job. That’s not failure. That’s reality. Work with your priest.
Here’s what fasting isn’t: it isn’t a way to earn God’s favor, it isn’t a competition with other Orthodox Christians, and it isn’t a weapon to beat yourself up with when you mess up. The purpose is to liberate you from dependence on comfort and ease so you can attend to God more fully. If your attempts at fasting are making you more anxious, more judgmental, more despairing, something’s gone wrong. Fasting should make you gentler, not harsher.
The saints mastered fasting over decades. You’re not St. Mary of Egypt. You’re you, and you’re learning. Even people who’ve been Orthodox for 30 years sometimes break the fast. They confess if needed, they get back up, they keep going. That’s how this works.
One more thing. If you break the fast, don’t try to “make up for it” by being extra strict the next day or punishing yourself. That’s not how grace works. Just return to the discipline as it’s given. Wednesday is Wednesday. Friday is Friday. Great Lent is Great Lent. You don’t need to add extra rules to compensate for your weakness. You need to keep showing up.
The fast will teach you more through your failures than through your successes, if you let it. Every time you fail and get back up, you learn that this isn’t about your willpower. It’s about God’s mercy and your willingness to keep trying. That’s a lesson worth learning, even if it takes a lifetime.
