Friday after Ash Wednesday
Our culture is very health-conscious. The very idea of fasting seems foreign in contemporary America. True fasting is hard. Several years ago, I went on a bread-and-water fast just on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. That did not seem too bad – after all, I love bread! However, there was something about that being the only thing I could have that made it almost unbearable.
Fasting is hard. So when we see Isaiah say the fasting God desires is really to care for the poor, or our psalmist says that a repentant heart is a proper sacrifice – we tend to run to those things. I wonder, however, if we do not really know how to truly fast from food that we can understand how to do the greater things? “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones” (Luke 16:10).
Notice that Jesus does not say if you fast but instead, “When you fast,” (Mt. 6:16) and “then they will fast” (Mt. 9:15). To truly fast from food may make one realize that he can give to the poor not from surplus but from sustenance, because, “Blessed are you poor” (Luke 6:20). Our word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word laencte which means “to lengthen,” as the spring daylight hours do. May this season stretch us in charity and holiness.
Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB
