Tag Archives: Fasting

The Gateway Vice

Anthropology, Eucharist, Fasting, Virtue, , , , , ,

As Eve twisted the apple from its stem, little did she grasp that she was also twisting the desires of her progeny for all time.  By mingling good and evil, their desires would no longer be the North Star that God intended them to be.  For He had willed that man, in pursuing those things that were truly good for him, would be rewarded with pleasure.  Reason commanded the will towards the good and pleasure was its reward.  Adam seized the reward instead by choosing that which was “pleasing to the eye and good for food,” Adam truly upset the apple cart.  In choosing pleasure over reason, reason no longer ruled but instead wrestled with pleasure.  In seemingly becoming “like unto the gods” he became like unto a beast. 

God did not leave mankind unaware of its fundamental brokenness but instead left an orientation towards those things that are truly good for them intact.  It became difficult, but not impossible.  Generation after generation knew this and sought to root out vice and find fulfillment in virtue.  But few of those generations have embraced this brokenness with such gusto as our own.  Virtue is something to be signaled, not actually owned, and vice is to be rationalized away as, at worst, a “bad habit” akin to cracking your knuckles or clicking your tongue before you speak.  If virtue is to be more than signaled, then we must restore a proper understanding of vice. 

Following in the footsteps of the desert monks, St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, Tradition has left us with Seven Deadly Vices.  St. Thomas called them Capital Vices because these seven vices are usually the source or head of all of the sins we commit (see ST II-II, q.153, art.4).  The reason why this is important is that these vices remain hidden to us as subconscious motivations for the sins we do commit.  They cause us to steal pleasure where none should be found.  Only once they are recognized can we restore pleasure to its rightful place as a side effect. 

A Useless Vice?

One of these vices, gluttony, at least on the surface does not seem to be a big deal.  How could a little overeating or carrying a little too much have anything to do with our spiritual life?  But, as St. Gregory the Great said, “unless we first tame the enemy dwelling within us, namely our gluttonous appetite, we have not even stood up to engage in the spiritual combat.”  His point is that gluttony is a gateway vice that, left unconquered, will most certainly lead to hell.  It trains us in the practice of self-indulgence and causes us to more and more of it.  Likewise, when we abandon reason when it comes to eating, we are almost certainly going to abandon it in other areas too.

Now I mentioned the connection between being fat and gluttony, but we would err greatly if we thought gluttony is all about whether we are fat or not.  The skinny woman who drinks a six-pack of Coke Zero a day is likely to be far more gluttonous than the man whose six pack is buried beneath 25 pounds of fat.  The latter might recognize that the purpose of eating is to provide nutrition while the former has no such awareness.  She merely wants the pleasure of Coke without the caloric consequences.  She is limited only by the amount of pleasure she craves, not by any bodily need or capacity.  And herein lies the vice of gluttony: “the sin of gluttony is when the desire for such pleasures goes beyond the rule of reason.  And so there is the saying that ‘gluttony is the intemperate desire to eat.’” (St. Thomas Aquinas, On Evil).  

The problem is not the pleasure attached to eating—God has attached that pleasure to eating because eating fulfills our nature.  Nor is it necessarily that we choose a food we like better than another to eat.  Gluttony is deeper than that, it resides interiorly in that it is the pleasure, rather than the reason for eating, that drives us.  Right reason says that food is necessary for humans in two ways: first as nutrition and second as a means of sharing life with others.  Anytime we go beyond those reasons, we are operating under the vice of gluttony. 

As proof that gluttony is more than just about girth, there are five ways in which it tends to manifest itself.  These can be remembered by invoking the acronym FRESH—fastidiously, ravenously, exceedingly, sumptuously, and hastily.

In the Screwtape Letters, Wormwood complains to Screwtape about how useless gluttony is for capturing humans.  Screwtape quickly corrects him and says that fastidious gluttons are often very easy to ensnare.  The Fastidious Glutton is the one who suffers from the “‘All-I-want’ state of mind.”  Its hiddenness makes it quite useful in capturing her in a diabolic net because she is so particular about her food and how it is prepared that she is miserably attached to the pleasure of eating foot that is “made your way.”  The taste is all that matters for the fastidious glutton.  The pleasure dominates her eating rather than coming as a side effect.  It also makes all those who have the misfortune of eating with her or preparing her food positively miserable.

There is also the glutton who eats sumptuously.  He is preoccupied with the pleasure of being full.  He will only choose those foods which are substantial enough to leave him with the feeling of fullness.  Reason should dictate when we have eaten enough to sustain ourselves and not the feeling of fullness.  When we eat to be full, we are again chasing pleasure rather than being controlled by reason.  Again there is no concern for what they are being filled with, only that they experience the pleasure of being full.   This is, by the way, the reason the Church in her wisdom traditionally recommends fasting from sumptuous foods during Lent and restricting the menu to bread and vegetables instead.

The ravenous glutton is the one who must eat as much as they can, regardless of whether there is enough food for anyone else and how full they are.  Their eyes might be bigger than their stomachs, but their stomachs will soon be bigger than their belts. 

Similar to the ravenous glutton there is the glutton who eats hastily.  This glutton treats his utensils like a shovel and must always have his mouth full without chewing or eating slow enough for digestion to occur.  The glutton who eats excessively.  He will eat past the point of fullness in order to indulge the tastes even if it leads to bloating and upset stomach later.

The Only True Antidote

The antidote ought to be obvious and something we have spoke about numerous times in the past—cultivating the virtue of fasting.  There is one particular aspect of fasting however that bears mentioning and that is the Eucharistic Fast.  We spoke of the reason for food and for eating being nutrition and sharing of life.  But the reason from God’s perspective is more expansive than that.  God gave us food as a sign of the only true Food that is the Bread of Life.  Therefore, we should forego the sign for the reality. 

The Church has us fast before receiving the Eucharist so that in experiencing bodily hunger we might recognize what that hunger actually points to.  By receiving the Eucharist in a state of hunger, it is Real Food that nourishes us.  To show us the truth of this, God gave a grace to the Saint of the Eucharist, St. Catherine of Siena by which she ate only the Eucharist for 7 years prior to her death.  This miraculous sign enabled her to eat only the Bread of Life and to suffer no ill effects from what would otherwise be a severe fast.  In order to truly hunger for the Eucharist then it becomes necessary to fast for more than just the obligatory hour before receiving.  We may choose to do something similar to what the Church had previously held that you could not eat anything during a day until you had received the Eucharist that day.

In his book Victory Over Vice, Venerable Fulton Sheen says that Christ’s cry of “I thirst” was His definitive destruction of the power of gluttony to rule the lives of Christians.  What better place then than the Mystical Foot of the Cross of the Eucharistic Sacrifice to receive those hard won graces to finally overcome the Gateway Vice of Gluttony.

Make Lent Hard Again

Fasting, Lent, Prayer, , , ,

In an age afflicted by ecclesial bar lowering, there is always a great danger that the inherent rhythm in the liturgical year will lose its meaning.  This is perhaps most true when it comes to the season of Lent.  Lent “officially” begins on Sunday, but Pope St. Gregory the Great added the four days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in order to add four extra days so that the Faithful would fast for a total of forty days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday (Sundays and the two Solemnities of St. Joseph and the Annunciation being days to relax the fasting).  In other words, unlike in our own times where we are required to fast two days during Lent, the great Pope wanted to raise the bar and make it harder!  It is in this spirit that we should all resolve to make this our hardest Lent ever.

A Harder Lent?

Now admittedly, Gregory the Great was not simply trying to make it harder, even if that was one of the side effects.  Instead, he was adjusting it so that Lent would retain its meaning.  He wanted us, day by day, to join Our Lord in the desert during His great fast.  Our Lord, true God and true Man, merited specific graces for each one of us individually each day that He fasted and fought in the desert.  Lent is meant to be the time when we receive those graces, but our Lord asks us to meet Him in order for Him to give them to us. 

It was no accident that Our Lord chose 40 days.  Whether it is the forty days and nights of rain during the Flood, the Forty Years spent wandering in the desert, or the 40 days by which Ezekiel had to lay on his side, forty is the number of punishment and affliction.  It is also the number of reparation with both Moses and Elijah joining Our Lord in reparatory fasting for 40 days.  It turns out, although not surprisingly, that forty is also the magic number for developing a new habit.  It is as if forty days of affliction and reparation is written into our fallen nature. 

Because Christ first instituted Lent in the desert, it has all the qualities of a Christian mystery.  And like all Christian mysteries it was instituted in order to bestow grace upon us.  It is like a sacrament, or better yet, a sacramental.  A sacred sign that is given to us that disposes us to receive grace.  Living out a true Lenten spirit disposes us to receive those graces Our Lord wants to give us.  Prayer, fasting and almsgiving take on a sacramental meaning, but especially fasting.  The emphasis of Lent is on fasting for good reason—Our Lord sanctified and weaponized it in the desert.  Lent is meant to be 40 days of hard fasting in reparation for our sins and growth in virtue. 

Lent Began Well, Ends Well

Another key component of Lent is the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  This is not, as many think, because it is only a symbol of our sinfulness and need for Penance, but because it is a Sacramental that, when received in faith, disposes us to the necessary graces to live a hard Lent.  This disposal happens through the prayer of the Blessing of the Ashes.  One of the prayers of blessing in the Novus Ordo Mass says:

O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion, mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may, through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

As I have spoken of previously, the power of Sacramentals come through their actual blessing and so we must, in order to properly take advantage of them, pay attention to what they have been empowered to do.  The ashes in particular then are true Sacramentals that, through the power of the Church, dispose us to receive all the graces necessary to have a “steadfast observance of Lent” and “gain the pardon of sins.”  By receiving the ashes, we are each individually guaranteed to receive the prayers of the Mystical Body that we can live a hard Lent.

As an aside, Ashes are a prime example of why the blessings from the Tridentine Rite are far superior to those of the Novus Ordo.  As a side-by-side comparison, take a look at the prayers.  The former clearly gives a more abundant blessing upon the ashes, rendering them far more powerful to aid us during Lent.   This is not a shot across the post-Vatican II bow, but a comment that, objectively speaking, the Church was far more generous in bestowing blessings upon the Faithful in the pre-Vatican II era.

Either way, armed by Our Lord in the desert and further disposed by the Ashes, we have everything we need to live a hard Lent.  What if each one of us, rather than measuring out “what we will give up”, went “old school” and fasted for these 40 days.  I have found that Dr. Jay Richard’s method detailed in his book is particularly effective for growing in the virtue of fasting and implementing as a daily practice in Lent.  Recalling that one of the reasons why the Church had so many fast days previously was so that we could develop the virtue of fasting, we may have to start at a level that is proportional to our current level of virtue.  But by the end of Lent we should all have developed the virtue and that only comes about through making it hard.

The “Great Bar Lowering” then must be met by a voluntary raising of our own bars.  Genuine contrition of soul can never be achieved without mortification of the body.  We are both body and soul and any attempt to separate the two in practice leads to great harm to our persons.  A hard Lent, fasting especially, will create in us a disposition of sorrow for our sins and a generosity of spirit in making reparation to Our Lord.  It is as if the diminishing of our physical energy brings about a supernatural energy.  Make Lent Hard Again!

Jumpstarting Reform

Devils, Eucharist, Fasting, Spiritual Life, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , ,

In the opening chapter of his short book, Letter to a Suffering Church, Bishop Robert Barron calls the scandal within the Church “a diabolical masterpiece”.  The Bishop’s point is that everything that has happened within the Church over the last half century has been clearly and methodically planned out such that the sulfuric stench cannot be overlooked.  Bishop Barron only mentions this insight in passing as he attempts to instill hope in those who have suffered greatly as a result of the latest scandal. It is befitting, however, if we are to fully come up with a plan of reform, that we linger just a while longer on this fact.

First, we must admit that as ghastly as the abuse crisis has been, from within the satanic strategy, it is but a means to the devil’s overall plan to destroy the Church.  What this means is that if we focus only on the abuse crisis then we will be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.  This is not to say that we do nothing about it or that we do not address it directly—band aids are necessary treating wounds, but only after the source of the wound is treated.  And the source of this wound in the Church is exacerbated by the fact that we deny that someone is actively working to destroy the Church.  It is the steady refusal over the last half century to admit of the Church’s militancy.  The Church is not a field hospital, but an army.  It may have field hospitals, but it is not the Red Cross.  It is an army because it is at war and its battleground is dominion of human souls.

Breeding Soft Soldiers

This repeated refusal to admit of the Church’s militancy has not changed the fact that she is Militia Christi, but it has made the soldiers soft.  The Church may be feminine, but she is not effeminate.  There is no more visible sign of effeminacy than sexual vice, especially of the kind that many clerics are accused.  But this softness affects not just the clergy but the laity as well.  We are the “soft generation” that is doomed to be the “lost generation” if we do not tighten up formation.

Notice that I did not say the softest generation, for there are far too many generations in the Church who have fallen prey to softness.  Church historian Roberto De Mattei describes the story of the Sack of Rome in 1527 as a “merciful chastisement” because reform in the Church had stalled and it served to jumpstart it. “The pleasure-seeking Rome of the Renaissance turned into the austere and penitent Rome of the Counter-Reformation.”  His point, although only implicitly made, is that chastening, either divinely or self-inflicted, is always a necessary pre-cursor to reform.  Softness must be rooted out one way or the other.

Like any army, once the enemy is clearly identified, a battle plan must be drawn up.  Since this is first and foremost a spiritual battle, we must use spiritual weapons.  Every renewal in the Church has come on the heels of a small remnant that committed to using these weapons and specifically aiming them at the enemies of the Church.  When the Church becomes soft, it is these three weapons, prayer, penance and mortification that are eschewed.  So, if we are to re-enter the fray, we must grasp the hilt of these three swords and wield them against our enemies.

Prayer

The mention of prayer is not meant to insinuate that people are not praying.  It is to direct our prayers towards a very specific intention—to strengthen and protect the Church from her enemies.  This intention is best fulfilled by praying with the Church in her two “official” prayers—the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

I have written many other times about the necessity of regularly, that is daily and not just weekly, participating in Mass so I won’t belabor the point yet again but lead with a simple question: what sacrifice in your life do you need to make so that you can become a part of Christ’s saving mission begun at Calvary and continuing at the altar of your local parish?  The Eucharist is an infinite source of grace that Christ is just waiting to pour out upon those who offer it with Him.

The second form of prayer is one that I have not discussed much in the past and that is the Divine Office.  Commonly called the Liturgy of the Hours, it is the prayer of the Church that is offered seven times a day.  Seven is no arbitrary number, but the Church’s answer to the fact that “though the just man falls seven times a day, he will get up” (Proverbs 24:16).  This getting up and returning whole-heartedly to God by singing to Him His songs of praise in the Psalms and Canticles and recalling His saving acts throughout history.  The Liturgy of the Hours are by their very nature penitential and thus perfectly suited to our times.

Those in the clerical state are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours under the pain of sin.  Many unfaithful priests do not.  The laity can pick up the standard voluntarily and run with it, keeping those unfaithful priests, many of whom are directly responsible for the sad state of the Church, in their intentions.  And because it is a free gift and not required it is most pleasing to God, even if due to our state in life it requires a great sacrifice to pray seven times.  Desperate times call for heroic sacrifice.  If it seems daunting find someone who can pray it with you or teach you, or read one of the recent books written to draw the laity into the Divine Office.

Penance and Mortification

These two terms, penance and mortification, are often used interchangeably.  Grasping the distinction is important only insofar as it relates to our intention.  Penance is reparation for sins committed, mortification is like pre-pentence in that it is aimed at rooting out the weaknesses that cause us to sin and have to do penance.  In practice they should go hand in hand.

Sins of the flesh and the demons who specialize in them are specifically targeted by fleshly penance and mortification.  “These can come out only with prayer and fasting”.  Fasting is the “fleshly” penance par excellence because it trains the Christian soldier to control all of his fleshly appetites.  It is the antidote to the softness that has hamstrung the Church.  It is no wonder that we no longer hear about it from the pulpit or that the Church does not require it more often than twice a year.  We need to be giving more and offer it in reparation for the Church’s soft sins.  The upcoming battle will require tremendous sacrifice and only those who have trained themselves to forego what is necessary in favor of the “one thing that is necessary” that will persevere.

There are many ways to fast and all are good.  The point is to start by making sacrifices at each meal and add from there.  You will find a method that fits with your state in life.  The method that St. Thomas recommends amounts to skipping one meal a day and that principle seems to work well although the combinations are endless.  One that works very well for the laity because it is the least disruptive to family life is from dinner to dinner.  You eat dinner on day 1 and then eat only two tiny meals during the day and then have a full meal at dinner the next evening.  The point is not to kill yourself but to offer something to Jesus.  When this intention is kept in mind, you will find that your desire to be generous with Jesus quells any hunger pains.   

There are other bodily mortifications and penances that are helpful, especially when we think about those practices that make us soft—cold showers, sitting upright in a chair with both feet on the floor, setting AC/heat at a level where you are slightly uncomfortable, rocks in shoes.  The point is to directly attack our need for comfort in a spirit of penance.

St. Paul was perhaps the greatest cultural reformer and a pillar of the Church.  One could argue that his success was attributed to the fact that he had a clear understanding of who he was fighting against and armed himself spiritually for the battle.  “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).  If we want to jumpstart the reform of the Church, then we should likewise enter into the spiritual battle.

 

Losing the Weight of Vice without Dieting

Fasting, Virtue, , ,

“Lose weight without dieting!”  In a culture that is obsessed with diet and weight loss, headlines like this immediately catch our eye.  Most of these are fads, just like the diets they pledge to avoid, except for the latest trend—fasting.  Fitness articles and health gurus are now proclaiming the power of fasting to help lose weight.    That fasting has incredible health benefits should not surprise us as Catholics.  These cutting-edge scientists are really just regurgitating what the humblest of monks in the 6th and 7th Centuries already knew—that the spiritual benefits of fasting spill over to the body.  What they don’t recognize however is why this is so.  And in truth, neither do most of us.

This maxim that spiritual benefits of certain acts like fasting can spill over into the body is important for us to grasp.  Not only does it witness to our hylomorphism, but more to the point it sheds light on the fact that acts of virtue are good for the whole person.  We tend to see virtue as “a spiritual thing” that really only leads to frustration of our bodily powers.  But properly understood virtues perfect our powers and restore the soul as rightful governor of the body, enabling us to more fully enjoy our freedom.

Fasting, Virtue and Freedom

An example might help us see the truth in something we may unconsciously already know.  All things being equal, a man who is patient is also a man whose blood pressure is lower than a man’s who isn’t patient.  The reason we don’t grasp it at first is because conquering a vice like anger is very difficult at the beginning and, rather than calming the body, can have the opposite effect.  The man not schooled in patience is going to be further frustrated by the fact that he is holding back his frustration.  It can be downright painful in proportion to our viciousness.  So painful in fact that modern psychology tells us it is unhealthy repression.  In truth, pain is vice leaving the body.  But once the virtue matures in us, its fruits are felt in the body.  And like the fruit from a mature tree, it brings us pleasure, a pleasure that will be reinforced in the body.

At this point the reader may feel they have become victim to a little “bait and switch.”  We started out talking about fasting but somehow moved to virtue, using the example of patience.  The analogy was made because most of us don’t fast and most of us don’t realize that fasting is a virtue.  Fasting as a virtue means, that when habitually cultivated, it actually perfects our nature.  Put another way, we will never be perfect unless we fast.  Thus St. Thomas Aquinas says that fasting is a precept of the natural law.

Fasting is a virtue because it perfects our will power especially with respect to our concupiscible appetites.  Recall that the concupiscible appetite or emotions are those that draw us to bodily goods like eating and sex.  Because these pleasures are so closely related, fasting not only governs our use of food but also, St. Thomas Aquinas says, is the guardian of chastity.  When we can habitually control our desire for food which is an absolute necessity, we can control the other desires of the flesh which are not.  Once our powers of eating are controlled by the will, we actually enjoy it more—we are able to feast without splurging and experience true joy.  In other words, eating becomes not just a bodily act but an act of the whole person.  We come to eat the right things, in the right way at the right time and thus increase our pleasure.  So too with the other powers of the flesh when the virtue of fasting comes full bloom.

Those experienced in fasting will develop a power of will that enables it to choose independent of the desires of the flesh.  Until that experience comes we should expect it to be hard and expect to fail.  The untrained body will rail hard against the spirit that attempts to bridle it.  But like a man trying to train a horse and not necessarily break it, it is always better to start at a level that is parallel to our starting point.  A bread and water fast for someone who does not fast will only lead to failure.  Instead begin by fasting at each meal, making one small sacrifice (leaving a bite on the plate, no salt, eating what is before you, etc.) each time you come to the table.

Additional Benefits of Fasting

Our intellectual powers also are perfected through fasting.  St. Thomas says that fasting enables the mind to “arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things.”  What he means by this is that through fasting our minds are freed from the day to day clutter that inhibits us most of the time.  Again anyone who has dabbled in fasting knows that all you can think about at first is how hungry you are.  But as time goes on you gain greater control over your thoughts and are no longer as concerned with the needs of the body.  Your body may be saying “I’m starving” but the will is telling it “stop whining, you are not starving.”  Eventually the will wins out and the body relents; creating a calmer atmosphere for thought.  Those schooled in fasting all can attest to a certain clarity in thinking that is not there when they are not fasting, but the habit of raising their minds above the humdrum remains even after fasting is over.

St. Thomas adds a third reason why we should fast and that is to satisfy for sins.  Catholics are well aware of the penitential value of fasting, or at least they ought to be.  But there is a related point that is worth examining because it goes to the heart of sacrifice in general.  Which is more pleasing to God, a fast that is hard or a fast that is easy?  I don’t mean hard or easy in the sense of rigor but more in how freely (without interior resistance) we are able to accomplish it.  Most of us would say that a sacrifice that is hard is more pleasing.  But that is not true.  The greater the person’s virtue, the greater their freedom in making the offering.  The person who does not yet have the virtue of fasting goes back and forth but the person with the virtue sets their will on fasting and never deviates.  The latter offers a greater sacrifice even if the rigor of the former is greater.

Want to lose weight without dieting?  Not just body weight, but also the dead weight of the vices of the “old man” (c.f Romans 6:6).  There is no better way than to develop a virtuous life of moderation that includes the virtue of fasting.  Like all the virtues fasting is hard at first, but with maturity it produces sweet fruits that are more enjoyable than the palatable pleasures passed up.  Why not begin today?

Fasting in Lent

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In his 18th Century encyclical letter Non ambigimus, Pope Benedict XIV sought to encourage his brother bishops and the Church Universal to zealously keep the Lenten fast.  Not only did he view it as a distinguishing mark of Catholic Christianity, but he also lamented that “the most sacred observance of the fast of Lent has been almost completely eliminated.”  Certainly the last two and a half centuries have witnessed a continued decline.  But if what Pope Benedict XIV says is true, namely that:

“[T]he observance of the Lenten fast is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.”

Perhaps as we plan out our Lenten practices, we ought to examine the practice of fasting once again.

Fasting has a long history within the Church.  We know that Our Lord Himself left us by way of example this practice when He went into the desert and fasted for 40 days.  But like all things that Christ did, He left us more than an example.  During His time in the desert, He won for us as individuals all the graces attached to fasting.  As the only Begotten Son of God, He saw each of your Lenten fasts individually and won for you the specific graces you would need during that Lent.  These graces become available to you to the degree that you participate in His fast.  Thanks to the work of the Redeemer, fasting becomes not only an act of penance but a positive means of growing in sanctity and arms us for spiritual warfare.

We also know that the followers of Christ were expected to fast.  When the disciples of John (Mk 2:18-22) the Baptist ask Jesus why His followers do not fast, He tells them that it isn’t fitting for them to fast while He is with them.  This is because John the Baptist and his followers fasted both in anticipation of the coming Messiah and as an act of penance.  By offering the new wine of redemption, Our Lord was changing the meaning of fasting.  That meaning could only be understood once the Bridegroom had departed from their company.  In other words, the new fruits of fasting were only available once Jesus’ redemptive mission was completed.  Thus fasting is not only something Christians should do, but there is also a uniquely Christian way to fast.

Lenten Cross

While I have visited the question of fasting previously and mentioned some of the specific fruits attached to it, I would like to examine some of the reasons why fasting in Lent is so essential.  Lent is a time consecrated in a special way to penance and the Church has viewed fasting as the primary means by which this penance is performed.  Why fasting?  Because as Ss. Basil and Gregory the Great point out, the first sin was one of eating.  By breaking the commandment of abstaining from eating a particular thing, our first parents allowed all sin to enter the world.  Therefore it is fitting that when we fast through the merits of Christ we are able to undo the effects of that sin in our lives.  In other words, just as eating universally led to sin in mankind, abstaining from eating can untie that knot.

But wouldn’t fasting from apples be enough?  Why does it include fasting from meat?  Again it is tied to man’s sinful nature.  By way of concession, God allows man to eat the flesh of animals in His covenant with Noah (Gn 9:1-4) because he needs the animal flesh in order to be strengthened in his fallen state.  So by abstaining specifically from meat, it once again is a participation in the fruits of Christ’s redemptive act.

Looking at it from Christ’s redemptive act and from the perspective of undoing some of the effects of the Fall, we can see why it is a powerful spiritual practice.  But it has fallen into disuse for many in the Church.  In response to this, the Church has done all she could to make it possible to fulfill the necessity of fasting while not imposing burdens beyond what the average Catholic in the 21st Century can handle.  But the problem is that the average Catholic in the 21st Century can handle a whole lot less than say the average Catholic in the 13th Century.  Given the overall increase in health, shouldn’t it be the exact opposite?  What has changed is the mindset.  While I am not necessarily advocating extreme fasts over Lent, the remedy to this mindset is to actually embrace the Lenten fast.

There is a tendency to think “I can fast from other things instead” and then we set out to be innovative in our Lenten practice.  The problem with this is that there is almost always a lack of humility in doing this because, as St. Francis de Sales says, “we will find that all that comes from ourselves, from our own judgment, choice and election, is esteemed and loved far better than that which come from another.”  But by acting in obedience to Our Lord’s example, we choose a penance which is imposed from without.  This offers us an opportunity to grow in humility by voluntarily choosing someone else’s conception of penance.

This is not to say that fasting from TV, social media or the like may not be a spiritually fruitful experience.  As an aside, we should always fast from that which is good—to avoid something like yelling at your wife, is not fasting.  What is being said is that these things should never be substitutes for fasting from food.  Do them in addition to fasting, not in place of.  Because food is necessary to life, the hunger we experience in going without, is felt at the core of our being.  We give up what is necessary because we want the One Thing that is most necessary.  Those other things, while good, do not share this same essential quality.

In the past, Christians were under obligation to eat only a single meal each day during the entire Lent.  Obviously this would be too difficult for us today.  Instead we might consider following the current norms for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday for all the days of Lent.  When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal. Two smaller meals also can be eaten, although they should not be larger than the full meal combined.  We should also consider abstaining from meat in any of those meals.  Fasting and abstinence should not be done on Sunday—even during Lent, Sunday is a feast day rather than a fast day.  This connection between fasting and feasting, especially during Lent, will also help us to enjoy the Sabbath day all the more.  By fasting throughout Lent, we will realize the fruits of the Easter feast even more.  May our Lenten fasts lead to great spiritual renewal for us all!