Fasting Teaches, Self-Control, Patience, & Discipline
There are so many ways to follow after God. That is another way of saying there are many holy things you can do to please God. Some of these things can be easy and others can be hard to do. These “things” that we can do to please God are what Catholic's call penance. Penance is the holy work of giving to God our love and attention for the good of all people. Penance is also used as a way of 'paying for the cost of sin'. Let me explain with an example, let's say you were playing baseball and you threw the ball into my window and broke it! So you come to my house to tell me how sorry you were and let's say that I forgave you for breaking my window. Great! So all is well right? Well, not really because the window is still broken. Who do you think is going to have to pay for that window? It would be good 'penance' to work in some way so that you can assist me in getting the window fixed. In this way, you are not only forgiven but you also do something with that new found forgiveness and increase that goodness by doing something right. This is the same thing we experience in the Sacrament of Confession where we come to confess our sins with great sorrow for sinning (to have contrition) and the Priest gives Absolution (Priestly authority to forgive sins) but before the Priest forgives you, he asks you to do a penance that will help pay the cost of your sins. For as Scripture says, “the wages of sin are death” so therefore we do many penances for the sake of holiness but also to bring holiness to our lives that we may enter fully into Christ. As I said before, there are many different kind of penances, some easy and some not. One of those difficult ones is to 'fast'.
This doesn't mean that you are to be quick on your feet or pray fast. Instead, this means to deliberately keep something from your self as a sacrifice for the sake of holiness. The act of fasting was one of the things Jesus told us to do, besides pray, in order to do great things in his name. Fasting can also be applied to just about anything for example, you can fast from your favorite activity to do something not for yourself but for God like fasting from TV to go and pray the rosary. Fasting usually means that you limit how much you normally eat which will likely leave you a little hungry. These 'hunger-pains' are an element of fasting of which you can 'offer it up' to God for the sake of poor lost sinners. In fasting from foods, we can sometimes feel a little weak as well because our bodies are used to receiving a certain amount of food; in this state, of flesh is being 'tempered' in the same way that steel is placed in the fire then beaten into place by powerful hammer blows. When we choose to limit ourselves from either food or particular interests for the sake of God, we become a walking prayer. As I said previously, Jesus mentioned fasting as an added element to prayer in order to do great things. In this particular moment in Jesus' life, there was a person possessed by a demon and the disciples could not get it out by prayer. Jesus revealed to them and us that some evil can only be removed by prayer AND fasting. But why? Why is fasting such a good and holy thing that can somehow make prayers stronger?
Well, it isn't that your prayers are stronger, it just means you are more in-sync with how God wants you to respond to Him. It was St. Paul that said, “When I am weak, then am I strong!,” he said this because he was trying to explain to us that the body isn't the most important thing but rather our soul is! We must work to put down the urges to greedily serve our body's desires and use focus more on spiritual things. So, in fasting, which can make our bodies weak, but in our prayers while we fast, we are strong! By fasting, you are doing what Jesus asked that if any person were to follow Him, we have to: “Deny yourself, pick up your cross (all your troubles, temptations, the good, the bad, etc.), and follow Me.” When we limit ourselves (fasting) on purpose for God, it teaches us patience, self-control, and discipline in ways you may not have understood if you did not fast. Fasting teaches us to wait and in our wait, we are given plenty of time to think and pray on God and His goodness. So when you fast, do so cheerfully, otherwise there is nothing you can gain from it. In the same way, if you broke my window and said you were sorry then complained about having to help fix the window, I might not believe your apologies. Therefore, fast with a smile on your face because you are doing it for God and He deserves all the love we can possibly give! Amen.