So…Why DID John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast so much,
while Jesus’ disciples fasted so little?
In his somewhat enigmatic statement about the Bridegroom,
Jesus tried to teach one of the most fundamental attitudes for a Christian:
joy. When God is with us we are to rejoice. When God is with us and we are with
God it should be much more like Easter Sunday than Good Friday.
The prevailing attitude of Jesus’ day was simply: the more
you fast the holier you must be. The Pharisees derived their religious
authority from how holy people thought they were. So they fasted, they wore
wide phylacteries, they prided themselves on external precepts. But Jesus, over and over exposed their hypocrisy. Holiness isn’t just about fasting and the
clothes you wear. Holiness isn’t about play-acting. Holiness is from the inside-out. “Rend your
hearts, not your garments” we heard on Ash Wednesday.
Jesus isn’t saying here that fasting is bad. But, this Gospel today really helps us to
understand the purpose of our Lenten fasting, and the proper motivation for it.
Why do we fast? After all, didn’t Jesus say at the end of
Matthew’s Gospel, that he is with us always until the end of time? Isn’t Jesus
truly present in all the tabernacles of the world? Isn’t he going to become
present to us at this Holy Mass? So present, that we will touch his very flesh
and blood?
The reality of Lent
is that even though Jesus is always with us, we are not always with Him. We fast, not because Jesus is absent, but
because foolishly withdraw from Him through our sins. Fasting is one of those
means by which we begin to hunger for Him, to desire to be with Him
always. We fast in order to “rend our
hearts”: to rekindle our longing to be with God, to live by his wisdom, and to
abhor sin by which we withdraw from Him.
Through fasting we show that the pleasures of this world are
not what make us whole and truly fulfilled. It is not cookies and snacking and
desserts and television and internet and whiskey and wine in which we find our
joy. True Lenten fasting should open us
to new vistas of joy.
This is why during Lent we also increase our prayer. For it is through prayer that God feeds us.
He feeds us through his Word, and so we spend more time reflecting on
Scriptures, we make extra effort to attend weekday Mass, we meditate on how
much he loved us when we attend the stations of the cross, we spend more time
in quiet simply listening for his voice.
We fast in order to deepen our hunger for him, and we pray
in order to be fed by him. May our
Lenten practices truly help us to rend our hearts, to turn away from Sin, and
find our joy in Christ for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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