Homily: Friday after Ash Wednesday - Why Fast?

Before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the entire season of Lent was a time of rigorous fasting for all adult Catholics: No eating between meals, and two smaller meals not adding up to the main meal of the day.   And throughout the whole year, Catholics were to abstain from eating meat on Fridays.

After Vatican II, these disciplines changed.  The abstaining from meat on Fridays throughout the year may now be substituted with some other penitential practice, though Fridays during Lent are still days of abstinence from meat.  And we have only two mandated fast days to observe: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

The practice of fasting goes far back into our biblical roots.  The Old Testament shows people fasting as a sign of conversion and repentance .  The New Testament also recommends the practice.  Jesus says, “when you fast” not “IF you fast”.  And the long history of the Catholic Church has preserved fasting as a practice important for our spiritual lives.

Fasting for Christians isn’t just a religious sort of weight loss program.  We don’t fast for the purpose of reducing our waist size.

Fasting is a spiritual self-discipline that makes us conscious of our dependence on God.  We voluntarily experience physical hunger in order to become aware of our true spiritual hunger.  That the deepest hunger of the human soul comes for the peace and joy and life that can only be satisfied by communion with God.

Another reason we fast is to subdue our passions and self-will.  If we cannot control our stomach, how can we control our urges for pleasure, money, and power?  Conscious of the many evils of our culture, we remember that Jesus taught us that some demons can only be cast out by prayer and FASTING.

Fasting opens our heart to charity.  Listen again to the Prophet Isaiah this morning: “This, rather, is the fasting, that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the throngs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”

May we take seriously the call to fasting this Lent, that our minds and hearts may be conformed ever more deeply to Christ for the glory of God and salvation of souls.