Fasting is not just for Lent
I’ve been thinking a lot about the practice of fasting. I’m terrible about it. I’ve been terrible about it for many years now. Yes, I keep the mandatory fasts set by the Church during Lent (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstinence from meat on Fridays of Lent). I also give things us for Lent as most Catholics do, though it is pretty lame compared to the fasts of Catholics of old, or the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. Another reason is because I think I’m beginning to understand the deeper spiritual meaning of fasting. I also have some good friends who have made fasting a regular part of their spiritual life. I’ve witnessed the great good it does for them.
People fast for all kinds of reasons. For example, intermittent fasting for health reasons seems to be enjoying more and more attention. That’s fine as far as that goes, but what about fasting as a Christian? At least in the developed West, fasting has been reduced to a minimum and confined to Lent. Following the Second Vatican Council many of the rules for fasting were relaxed. I always wondered why this was. Recently, I stumbled up a statement from the US Bishops on Fasting from 1966 (the link is at the end of this article). It is an interesting statement coming out of the reforms of Vatican II. While the regular practice of fasting took a deep decline in practice after the Council, that was not the intent. The relaxing of the rules was an attempt to move from simply following the rules to embracing the true meaning of fasting. One could follow all the rules of fasting and completely miss the point and thus miss the spiritual fruits of fasting. And so, the hard and fast rules were relaxed with the hope that Christians would take on the discipline of fasting freely and more appropriately according to their life circumstances. Instead, people just stopped fasting altogether or only did the bare minimum. And I wonder if even that small amount is done for the right reasons.
However, fasting looms large in both the Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. It’s a spiritual discipline considered to be a regular part of the Christian life. Notice the emphasis on regular. Fasting appears throughout the Old Testament. The prophets fasted for the sins of their people. Whole cities were called to repent in sackcloth and ashes, eating and drinking nothing (see the Book of Jonah). In the Gospels, we see that Jesus himself fasted and prayer in the desert for forty days. When Jesus was rebuked because his disciples did not observe the laws of fasting, Jesus replied that they do not fast now because the Bridegroom (Jesus himself) is with them, but the time will come when they will fast. In the Church, the penitential observance of Lent has always been the most intense. Though Advent also has a penitential flair to it and has been a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Special fast days throughout the year known as Ember Days were observed on a set Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday once in each of the four seasons of the year. Throughout history other longer periods of fasting were observed such as the Fast of St. Martin (from St. Martin’s feast day on November 11 until Christmas) or the St. Michael’s Lent popularized by St. Francis of Assisi (from the Solemnity of the Assumption on August 15 until the Feast of the Archangels on September 29). While the particulars of length and severity of fasting have shifted according to time, place, and one’s state in life (monastic orders being the most intense, usually), the essential truth that fasting is a regular part of the Christian life is the same.
But why should we fast? Fasting as a spiritual discipline is not for weight loss. Better bodily health may result, and that’s great! But that is not the central purpose. Fasting is also not for bragging rights to self or others. I’m all for doing hard things to push yourself. But fasting is not about proving you can do something difficult. It is not there to stoke the fires of your ego. The goal of fasting is love of God and neighbor as Isaiah the Prophet says:
Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking off every yoke?
Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry,
bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own flesh? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
How does fasting move us to love God and neighbor? In particular, fasting helps us grow in temperance. I won’t go into detail about the Virtue of Temperance right now. Suffice it to say, it is about self-mastery. We have desires for all kinds of things. Not all desires are good. We can desire pleasure, power, and wealth in ways that are contrary to what is good and true (aka, sin). Some desires are good but can become disordered or lack the right measure. For example, the desire for food is good and necessary for life. Purposely overindulging on ice cream for the pleasure of it is a good desire gone wrong. Pleasure/desire can rule us and make us self-absorbed, always trying to satisfy every little desire that arises. Hungry? Eat now. New sale on Amazon? Buy it now and it will arrive by the end of the day. Bored? Open TikTok now and scroll until you are numb. I think we have all felt the compulsion to one degree or another for all kinds of things. It turns into a rat race of always trying to fill some hole in our hearts, but it never satisfies. Basically, without the self-mastery of temperance we are not free. We are trapped by the incessant urge to fulfill some desire within us. But if we are not free, then we cannot fully love God and neighbor.
Fasting is an antidote to that mess. It takes our unhealthy level of attention off ourselves and onto that which really matters namely love of God and neighbor. True fasting moves us to live not just for ourselves. Fasting should be accompanied by prayer. Through fasting we can make time and space for God. See your hunger pains as a physical reminder of your deeper spiritual hunger for God. As Saint Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you.” Instead of having lunch or that snack, go to the Lord in prayer and read the Scriptures. Remember that all the good things of this world cannot fulfill the deepest longing of your heart. Only God can fill that. Fasting turns our attention to this important truth.
By turning the heart and mind back to God through humility and repentance we are necessarily turned towards love of neighbor. As Jesus himself says, the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments are always together and always in that order. Fasting helps us turn to focus more on God. Those who love God will love those whom He loves. Fasting should thus lead to “releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke…” Fasting helps free us from always pursuing our own desires and instead looking to the needs of others. That meal you skipped or that Amazon sale you decided to not buy, take that money you saved and give to the poor. The hunger you feel can be a reminder of the hunger of many starving people in this world, pray for them. Are you fasting from social media? Then take that time and spend it with a friend or call a family member.
There is much more to fasting that I didn’t cover here. There are some interesting questions about how often one should fast and what kind of fasting (food, media, etc.). I’m still thinking it through, so I’ll stop here for now. Yes, fasting can be hard. I think this is especially true in our western developed and rather wealthy culture in which we are long accustomed to having every little desire met almost instantly. But I think fasting rightly with a view towards love of God and neighbor will be the antidote to many of our spiritual ills. Fasting done rightly can make us less selfish. It can prepare the ground for humility and virtue and holiness. It can pave the way to real freedom, a freedom to love God and neighbor.
Letter on Fasting from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year-and-calendar/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence
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Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Kramskoi
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/christ-in-the-wilderness-ivan-kramskoi.html
