Daily Wisdom

“When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.”

St. Jerome

Fasting with meaning: Thursday

Fasting today is a widespread practice that is called “going on a diet”. The main reason? To acquire in vain and vanity the perfect figure we are all told to covet. In the beginning it was not like that. People fasted as a sign of mourning, and within the religious context, as a sign of repentance (penance) from sins.

Isaiah notices that fasting for the sake of being noticed does not please God. To “clothe the naked”, “to shelter the homeless”, “to share the bread with the poor” are the conditions for God answering our calls.

Jesus also understand fasting as a kind of mourning. However, He refers this mourning to the mysterious presence or absence of the “bridegroom”. The question remains whether we have  “the bridegroom now” or not. And the answer that the church has indirectly given is “yes” and “no”. No, because at times the church fasts, and yes because at times the church does not fast. Fasting was used before baptism (absence of the bride) and in preparation to receive the sacrament of reconciliation (penance). As pilgrims, we still enjoy the gift of His presence or suffer the loss of it as a consequence of our sins. Today as yesterday, what matters most is the reason why we fast.