are,
Times of abstaining from food and concentrating on spiritual matters largely for the purposes of: Mortifying the fleshly appetites.
or,
Expressing sorrow and affliction on account of some calamity.
or,
To pray that a present evil might be removed or an expected evil be averted.

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned...
2 Corinthians 6:4-6