Keeping the Eucharistic Fast

I should counterbalance the last post with some Jeremy Taylor.

"These holy mysteries are offered to our senses, but not to be placed under our feet; they are sensible, but not common; and therefore as the weakness of the elements adds wonder to the excellency of the sacrament, so let our reverence and venerable usages of them add honour to the elements, and acknowledge the glory of the mystery, and the divinity of the mercy. Let us receive the consecrated elements with all devotion and humility of body and spirit; and do this honour to it, that it be the first food we eat, and the first beverage we drink that day, unless it be in case of sickness, or other great necessity; and that your body and soul both be prepared to its reception with abstinence from secular pleasures, that you may better have attended fastings and preparatory prayers. For if ever it be seasonable to observe the counsel of St. Paul, that married persons by consent should abstain for a time, that they may attend to solemn religion, it is now. It was not by St. Paul, nor the after-ages of the church, called a duty so to do, but it is most reasonable that the more solemn actions of religion should be attended to, without the mixture of anything that may discompose the mind and make it more secular or less religious."

-- THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING: IN WHICH ARE DESCRIBED THE MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF OBTAINING EVERY VIRTUE AND THE REMEDIES AGAINST EVERY VICE, AND CONSIDERATIONS SERVING TO THE RESISTING ALL TEMPTATIONS TOGETHER WITH PRAYERS CONTAINING THE WHOLE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN, AND THE PARTS OF DEVOTION FITTED TO ALL OCCASIONS, AND FURNISHED FOR ALL NECESSITIES. BY JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First, and some time Lord Bishop of Down and Connor.