SPRING FAST
We are already well into our Lenten season. The Church calls us to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Those days are kind of like the bookends to Lent – the beginning and end. And what do we do with all the days or “books” in between. We are still called to prayer, fasting and alms giving.
When I think of fasting I think of my parents in those times when Christians were encouraged to fast all forty days of Lent. They did so faithfully and I never heard them complain or say it was too hard even when their kids made popcorn! I’ve never had to do that kind of fasting. If you don’t remember that was one full meal and two small ones with no eating in between meals. Once during a retreat I did a four-day water only fast. It wasn’t too bad after the initial hunger pangs went away. I had read much about it before the retreat. My spiritual director at that time sent me to see the movie “Gandhi” to learn about his fasting. (That movie is readily available now) I remember at the end of those days when I finished the fast with a glass of orange juice. I could feel that nourishment flow through my whole body. That felt experience still comes back to me at times. I would never do it again. I was half the age I am now and it was before MS.
My motivation at that time was for blessing on our Provincial elections happening during those days.
What set me off on these reflections – besides it being Lent - was a book I just got. It’s “The Spirituality of Fasting” by Charles M. Murphy. The paragraph that caught me was:
It is significant that Christian fasting, if it is authentic, has nothing of the grimness and extreme efforts of willpower and self-control. Lent in the Catholic liturgy is called “this joyful season,” and in the Orthodox liturgy it is referred to as a time of “bright sadness.” Why such a paradox? A penitential season can be joyful and bright because it is done communally, a group effort of mutual support and encouragement, and, more important, because it redirects our attention away from ourselves and toward God. Grim determination and feats of will power will get you only so far and are often self-defeating. In the end we come to realize it is only God who saves, and that is such a relief.
I think my parents had a sense of that communal group effort even though it wasn’t spoken. And my short few hour fasts now are done in solidarity with all those millions and millions of brothers and sisters who fast everyday not by choice but by circumstances.