Daily Retreat 02/25/09
2009 Feb 25 Wed: Ash Wednesday
Jl 2: 12-18/ Ps 50(51): 3-4. 5-6ab. 12-13. 14 and 17/ 2 Cor 5: 20 -- 6:2/ Mt 6: 1-6. 16-18
From today’s readings: “Even now, says the LORD, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.... Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense.... Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.... When you give alms, when you pray, when you fast....”
Making Fast
In spite of the popularity of dieting, the concept of fasting is curiously uncommon in modern life. And yet dieting and fasting both amount to the same basic activity - that of abstaining from certain foods. But dieting, of course, is endured merely to enhance the health of the body, whereas fasting is undertaken precisely to strengthen the health of the soul.
Biblical fasting is thus never intended to wreak havoc on bodily health - that would be taking the discipline way too far! Rather, the fasting the scriptures enjoin upon us today has a noble purpose: to help us harness the drive of bodily appetites as a means of assisting with spiritual progress. For, while a wild horse is perhaps a beautiful animal, an intractable brute is inevitably either a nuisance or even a threat, whereas a tamed, harnessed horse can be every bit just as majestic, but quite helpful as well for productive labor and travel. Likewise, our bodily appetites, if left out of control, soon become a nuisance or a threat to our overall well-being, but when properly reined in, the appetites serve us in our work and progress.
During Lent, the Church prescribes a rather mild regimen of fasting as the minimum for her members. Today, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only days of required fast, but that does not even mean that we are forbidden to eat a single bite of food on these two days! Rather, the Church’s discipline merely calls for moderation: one main meal of our choice during the day of more or less normal portions, but the other two meals are to be reduced more or less to half portions, and on these two days of fast, as well as on all of the Fridays of Lent, we are to abstain from meat and meat products. And further allowances are even made for reasons of age and health.
But those regulations are meant to be merely a common starting point for fully entering the spirit of fasting! Each one of us can and should put together a more complete Lenten program of fasting, with the understanding that this discipline of self-denial need not just be limited to foodstuff. Many people abstain throughout Lent from desserts or favorite dishes, but one can also legitimately fast by turning off the TV, or limiting time spent on the computer, or arising earlier in the morning, or curtailing any leisure activity. By thus taming the bodily appetites, we suddenly re-discover resources of time and resolve of the will in order to better feed the spiritual appetite, our soul’s real hunger for the Lord’s Bread of Life, and real thirst for His living water.
Jl 2: 12-18/ Ps 50(51): 3-4. 5-6ab. 12-13. 14 and 17/ 2 Cor 5: 20 -- 6:2/ Mt 6: 1-6. 16-18
From today’s readings: “Even now, says the LORD, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.... Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense.... Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.... When you give alms, when you pray, when you fast....”
Making Fast
In spite of the popularity of dieting, the concept of fasting is curiously uncommon in modern life. And yet dieting and fasting both amount to the same basic activity - that of abstaining from certain foods. But dieting, of course, is endured merely to enhance the health of the body, whereas fasting is undertaken precisely to strengthen the health of the soul.
Biblical fasting is thus never intended to wreak havoc on bodily health - that would be taking the discipline way too far! Rather, the fasting the scriptures enjoin upon us today has a noble purpose: to help us harness the drive of bodily appetites as a means of assisting with spiritual progress. For, while a wild horse is perhaps a beautiful animal, an intractable brute is inevitably either a nuisance or even a threat, whereas a tamed, harnessed horse can be every bit just as majestic, but quite helpful as well for productive labor and travel. Likewise, our bodily appetites, if left out of control, soon become a nuisance or a threat to our overall well-being, but when properly reined in, the appetites serve us in our work and progress.
During Lent, the Church prescribes a rather mild regimen of fasting as the minimum for her members. Today, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only days of required fast, but that does not even mean that we are forbidden to eat a single bite of food on these two days! Rather, the Church’s discipline merely calls for moderation: one main meal of our choice during the day of more or less normal portions, but the other two meals are to be reduced more or less to half portions, and on these two days of fast, as well as on all of the Fridays of Lent, we are to abstain from meat and meat products. And further allowances are even made for reasons of age and health.
But those regulations are meant to be merely a common starting point for fully entering the spirit of fasting! Each one of us can and should put together a more complete Lenten program of fasting, with the understanding that this discipline of self-denial need not just be limited to foodstuff. Many people abstain throughout Lent from desserts or favorite dishes, but one can also legitimately fast by turning off the TV, or limiting time spent on the computer, or arising earlier in the morning, or curtailing any leisure activity. By thus taming the bodily appetites, we suddenly re-discover resources of time and resolve of the will in order to better feed the spiritual appetite, our soul’s real hunger for the Lord’s Bread of Life, and real thirst for His living water.
posted by FrPitstick | 2/23/2009
<< Home