Prayer knocks, fasting gets, mercy receives

There are three things, three, brothers, for which faith is steadfast, devotion endures, virtue remains: prayer, fasting, mercy. That through which prayer knocks, fasting obtains it, mercy receives it. These three things, prayer, fasting, mercy, are one, and receive life from each other.
Fasting is the soul of prayer and mercy is the life of fasting. Nobody divides them, because they can't keep apart. He who has only one or does not have all three together, has nothing. Therefore whoever prays, fast. Let those who fast have mercy. Those who ask to be heard, ask those who ask questions. Whoever wants to find the heart of God open to himself does not close his heart to those who beg him.
Those who fast understand well what it means for others not to have food. Listen to the hungry, if he wants God to enjoy his fast. Have compassion, who hopes for compassion. Whoever asks for mercy, exercise it. Whoever wants to be given a gift, open his hand to others. A bad applicant is one who denies others what he asks for himself.
O man, be the rule of mercy for yourself. The way you want mercy to be used, use it with others. The breadth of mercy you want for yourself, match it for others. Offer to others the same prompt mercy that you desire for yourself.
Therefore prayer, fasting, mercy are for us a single mediating force with God, for us a single defense, a single prayer in three aspects.
How much with contempt we have lost, let us conquer it with fasting. We sacrifice our souls with fasting because there is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the prophet shows when he says: «A contrite spirit is sacrifice to God, a heart broken and humiliated, you, O God, do not despise "(Ps 50:19).
O man, offer your soul to God and offer the oblation of fasting, so that the host may be pure, the sacrifice holy, the victim living, that you remain and God is given. Whoever does not give this to God will not be excused, because he cannot fail to have himself to offer. But for all this to be accepted, to be accompanied by mercy. Fasting does not sprout unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up, if mercy dries up. What is rain for the earth, is mercy for fasting. Although the heart is refined, the flesh is purified, the vices are sown, the virtues are sown, the faster does not reap fruit if he does not make rivers of mercy flow.
O you who fast, know that your field will fast if mercy remains fast. Instead, what you have given in mercy will return abundantly to your barn. Therefore, o man, because you do not have to lose by wanting to keep for yourself, give to others and then you will collect. Give to yourself, giving to the poor, because what you have inherited from another, you will not have it.