We must use every gift that God gave/and continues to give us to help us keep Him close to us, and help our children to do the same.  Children tend not to be so calloused and cynical and small.   Cynicism kills the life of a soul.  We need child-like, simple, sincere and constant intimacy with Him (and all the saints) to stay cheerful and lively. 

This will help keep us from being so proud and cynical and dismissive.  These sins of pride rob our soul of the youth and vigor that God had in mind for it.  He designed it to be capable of spreading life and joy, not to beat the life out of things. 

Pride makes us seem old, stale, inflexible, cranky, not lively; small not magnanimous.  This is one reason why Jesus told us to approach Him as a little child. 

We should use our mind to think about God, our imagination, memory, vision, our hearing, our bodies (that's what fasting does..it uses our own bodily reflexes to remind us about God..our intention of the fast) to stay close to Him.