If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny others, your asking is a mockery. Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up.
Mercy is to fasting as rain is to the earth.
However much you may cultivate the heart and weed out vices, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit. When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin, but what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. When you fast, do not lose by saving but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.