Dominica I in Quadragesima - Fasting

LESSON: The four pillars of Lent

Lent has begun, this season of penance, discipline, and repentance. We often hear Lent referred to as having three tenets or pillars, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, however traditionally there are four tenets of Lent, and we can add penance or mortification to the three we already have. In the modern understanding of Lent we often combine fasting and penance together, we even say things like, “I’m going to fast from social media this Lent”, but fasting is a discipline in its own right, and we need all four of these pillars to have a truly fruitful Lent.

For the four Sundays that I am with you during this Lenten season (other than Palm Sunday), I will be devoting a sermon to each of these pillars of Lent, and today, given our Gospel passage of Our Lord’s forty-day fast in the desert, we will be talking about the often now forgotten discipline of fasting.

For those of you who haven’t given up social media for Lent, you may have seen a list going around, purporting to be from Pope Francis, which offers Lent suggestions such as, “Fast from hurting words, and say kind words. Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude. Fast from anger and be filled with patience”, and so on.

The problem with lists like these is that they confuse the practice of fasting in two ways, first of all, fasting refers specifically to food and drink, not to other things, and secondly, fasting means to deprive oneself of a “good” for the sake of a “greater good”. Giving up things like hurting words which we should not be using anyway, IS NOT FASTING.

This shift from bodily mortifications to spiritual offerings risks becoming a type of spiritualism, in which one believes that the spirit is wholly distinct from matter or the body.  Or perhaps it is a subtle type of Gnosticism in which the body’s importance is dismissed and, therefore, the mortifications of the body are seen as unnecessary to the spirit’s growth.

A Catholic should not be deceived by these shifts from traditional practices. We shouldn’t denigrate the mortification of the flesh.  The body does not change from one age to another and is always clamouring for self-satisfaction.  Even if you say nice words, bodily attachments remain hidden until you try and test them.

Hence, the problem with these misguided attempts at “deepening” the penitential time. Lent is not a period for either spiritual or bodily discipline. Lent is a time for both.

ILLUSTRATION: Not fasting is for the dogs

Once Upon a time, there was a Catholic gentleman had to go into town one Friday on business. He went to one of the large hotels for dinner and asked to be served with Friday fare.

The hotel keeper said that Friday fare was not to be had as his guests never required it.

“Very well, then, bring me coffee and a roll,” the gentleman answered.

While he sat sipping his coffee, the other guests began to make remarks about the folly of abstaining on Friday.

They took care to issue their orders for meat in a particularly loud voice and marked manner.

The Catholic gentleman thought about it for a bit, and then cried out:

“Waiter, a plate of roast beef!”

The other guests and the manager exchanged smiles, because they reckoned that they had shamed him into eating meat like they were.

But when the waiter brought the plate of meat, the gentleman said to him: “Put it down on the ground; the meat is for my dog who is lying under the table. The lower animals eat meat all the days of the week.”

As you can imagine, no further contemptuous remarks were made about the Friday abstinence.

What the gentleman really meant was: “The person who puts no restraint upon his appetite is like the irrational creatures.”

Fasting as a discipline, has been universally praised by the saints. St. Augustine said, “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity. Enter again into yourself.”

And St. Francis de Sales offering this insight, “Besides the ordinary effect of fasting in raising the mind, subduing the flesh, confirming goodness, and obtaining a heavenly reward, it is also a great matter to be able to control greediness, and to keep the sensual appetites and the whole body subject to the law of the Spirit; and although we may be able to do but little, the enemy nevertheless stands more in awe of those whom he knows can fast.”

APPLICATION: The benefits of fasting

Whatever our plans are for this Lenten season we need to include some form of bodily fasting among them (if we haven’t already). Whether we choose to take on the fasting disciplines of earlier ages, or whether we set up our own particular fast, it is a necessary component of our Lenten observance.

St. Robert Bellarmine, the great canonist and Doctor of the Church, specified in his writings all of the fruits of fasting:

First, fasting disposes the soul for prayer: fasting aids us in detaching our attention from temporal things and disposes us to more effectively commune with God. Hence Moses fasted before his meeting with God on Mount Sinai. Similarly, in scripture we see Elijah, and Daniel fasting, not to mention Our Lord himself.

Second, fasting tames the flesh: our body is not evil, but it can become a distraction in the service of God because of our bodily urges and passions that can bend our will away from God and towards gratifying those urges.

Third, fasting honours God: this is because we ourselves, trained by asceticism, become living sacrifices pleasing to God.

Fourth, fasting is penitential: fasting is an excellent means for atoning for our sins. Because we are in the flesh, we need food for nourishment, and thus fasting becomes inherently unpleasant, and it requires virtue to crucify the flesh. Thus it becomes a penance we can offer to God.

Fifth and finally, fasting is meritorious with God: fasting is both effective in obtaining favours from God, and in itself, the effort of fasting is a storehouse of heavenly treasures.

When Our Lord comes to us today in Holy Communion, let us ask him for the grace of fasting this Lent, true fasting, so that we can tame our bodily desires, repent of our sins, and live our whole lives truly for God.