Ongkingco
Father, I’m fasting this Lent? Clyde said as we ate lunched in the cafeteria.
“But you’re not even 18?”
“But I can do it and grandma is very happy!”
“Maybe you can offer something else, like making your bed, cleaning your bedroom and….”
“Dad said that if I beat him to it, he will give me a surprise gift!”
“I’ve never heard of competing with fasting, Clyde. How exactly does the challenge go?”
“It’s very easy, Father. The first one to finish all his food wins!”
“Oh dear!”
* * *
Clyde doesn’t seem to bother about fasting, especially since his dad gave him an incentive to eat fast. For many, however, the idea of fasting isn’t very attractive.
Fasting, is a well-known ascetical exercise that involves taking a lesser amount of food than one usually eats. The duration of this activity usually involves an entire day and is carried out for different reasons.
Catholic tradition obliges Her faithful, of 18 to 59 years of age, to fast on two specific days of the year: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Pope and Bishops, however, may encourage other days for specific intentions or socio-political circumstances (e.g. praying for war ravaged countries, plague and pestilence).
In general, the idea of fasting weighs on all of us. Our bodies biologically groan under the pangs of hunger that fasting brings. But the rationale behind this practice is not the “hunger itself” but to remind ourselves of our fragility and to forge in us solidarity with those who are actively experiencing greater injustices.
Pope Francis in this year’s Lenten message says, “Fasting weakens our tendency to violence; it disarms us and becomes an important opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to endure.”
But this is not all, the practice can also awaken in our spirits new lights and aspirations. When the body’s senses are dampened, so to speak, when deprived of a basic need as food, the soul’s senses are primed and become more active.
Thus, Pope Francis adds, “It [fasting] expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbor. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger.”
Going back to Clyde’s “fast-eating,” although fasting literally makes us eat faster simply because we take in less, in the process our souls are nourished with new graces and lights. We become more receptive to our Lord’s words that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from God.”