Fasting proves that Jesus is the deepest part of us.
Arlene and Martha (now deceased) served at a prayer/listening house in Ottawa for many years and wrote this article for Restoration in 1987.
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Fasting is a matter of faith and obedience. We fast because love calls us to obey the word of God. We fast for the sake of love: love of God, love of our brother, love of ourselves.
Fasting adds power to our prayers. It is the power of love which blesses, heals, and brings life to others. As we experience God giving us the grace to deny ourselves, our faith grows as well. We pray with greater hope, confident of his will to strengthen and help our brother or sister in need.
Fasting can carve a groove of patience into our being. To wait in peace and quiet for our next food, to be calm and hungry, takes patience. Then when situations come along that are difficult to change, when events occur that push us into our wounds and weaknesses, that channel of patience in our being makes it easier to endure, to persevere under trial, to stand the test.
Fasting restores our balance because in fasting, we fly in the face of our need instead of fleeing before it. We learn to stand firm. To fast regularly is to establish a beneficial rhythm in our lives. We can say “yes” and we can say “no.” We are free, not slaves to our appetites. We are the custodians of our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit.
Fasting jerks us into awareness like a brush with death. It reminds us that our bodies are indeed temples, places where God is worshipped, served, and glorified in all things and through all things.
We have no right to neglect our bodies, either by using them for our own pleasure or for revenge, or by despising them as beneath notice. You are not your own; you were bought with a price, says St. Paul. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:20).
Fasting teaches us about reality. We are social/physical/spiritual/emotional/mental beings. Each aspect of our life is inseparable from all the others. Our fasting cannot and will not be merely in spirit or merely in body. In hunger we touch emptiness, in emptiness — poverty.
In our poverty we become grateful, grateful for every bite of bread, every word of love. In our gratitude we live in the truth, the truth of that bite of bread, that word of love, that day, that person. They are all more wonderful than we ever realized before.
Fasting is not easy, at least not for most of us. We grow into it gradually, losing our fears along the way. It teaches us dependency and the mercy of God, as we pray to be able to fast this day, as we fail and try again, as we manage to go to bed with an empty stomach.
Fasting proves that Jesus is the deepest part of us. He is, in fact, at the bottom of an empty stomach. He is deeper than food or the desire for food. His love creates, sustains, and restores us, just as the food we eat does. And when we do not eat, we experience that creative, sustaining power of love in great purity and strength.
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Raise up your heart gently and softly whenever it falls. Humble yourself before God through the knowledge of your own misery, but do not be surprised at your fall. For it is no wonder that weakness should be weak or misery wretched. Detest, nevertheless, with all your power, the offense God has received from you. And with great courage and confidence in his mercy, return to the way of virtue which you had forsaken.
St. Francis de Sales
Image: Oil painting, “Mom’s Still Life,” by ©Donna Surprenant, Madonna House
