Lent again!
The gospel of Ash Wednesday sets the tone for the readings in these first couple of weeks of Lent. In it Jesus promotes and expounds on three practices: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. These are the three aspects of Lent especially promoted by the Church since the time of the Church Fathers.
Positive Aspect of Fasting
One facet of fasting we note in today’s readings is the positive aspect of fasting. Today we associate fasting with gloom, especially in our society of material excess. People today do deny themselves, but for temporal aims.
Growing up non-religious, my first encounters with fasting were with friends who were in wrestling. “Gotta make weight,” they’d say, as they ate almost nothing for lunch.
Then the girls, of course, were forever trying different diets. I always marveled at how ‘women’s lib’ was so much promoted, yet the main goal of most of the girls I knew was to look attractive to guys.
Near the end of high school, I, too, discovered self-denial in the form of fasting. I had been praying and reading the Bible for well over two years when I learned about Lent and the Catholic practice of fasting. I jumped in immediately. Since lunch was the only meal I ate away from the eyes of my parents, it was the meal that suffered the most. Dessert got discarded throughout Lent, and the last week, the chips did, too.
Near the beginning of Lent my mother baked a batch of my favorite cookies. I guess she noticed that I did not eat many of them and maybe I was losing weight, because a month later (still in Lent) she did it again and started making comments on how I was not eating. I resorted to eating a few, taking them to my room, then throwing them in the ivy behind our house. I guess the raccoons loved me for it.
Proper Fasting
Today’s first reading tells us that the Lord will guide the one who fasts properly. Such a person will be like a watered garden and will be called “Restorer of ruined homesteads.” He will ride on the heights of the earth and be nourished with “the heritage of Jacob.”
Proper fasting, according to the prophet Isaiah, involves helping those in need and spending the sabbath in holy pursuits. That first Lent I learned to help others in the form of giving away part of my lunch (though the recipients certainly were not people in need).
Use of Time
Most of all, though, I learned to dedicate my spare time to holy pursuits in the form of reading about Christianity instead of my preferred science fiction. It was really during that Lent that I learned about the Catholic faith through my reading and decided to attend the Catholic Church. Once I started attending (the Sunday after Easter), it was only a matter of when the priest would agree to baptize me.
Fasting brings different results to different people. For my wrestling friends it meant they could wrestle in the lowest possible weight category and have greater chances for victory. For some it means attracting members of the opposite sex and presumably experiencing rich relationships.
For the spiritual person it involves subordinating desire to a well-formed will. It means opening up all parts of our being to virtue, to good conduct and right living. It means welcoming the flood of grace our Lord wishes to bestow on every one of us.
We strive for this during these forty days!
Great thought for pondering, Father Mike.