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Although fasting is only required on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, many people use fasting as a spiritual exercise on additional days during the Lenten season. The Scriptures are filled with examples of fasting where the rewards sought and attained were spiritual. Jesus fasted forty days in the desert before beginning his public ministry; Moses fasted before receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai; Elijah fasted before meeting the Lord on Mt. Horeb (also known as Mt. Sinai); St. Paul’s ministry began after a period of prayer and fasting that followed his being blinded on the road to Damascus; and the disciples were encouraged by the Lord to fast when he was no longer with them.
Fasting is said to be the greatest spiritual discipline for those seeking God’s intervention. Combined with prayer, it provides spiritual strength and deliverance in our lives. Fasting can be a means of intense spiritual training that helps us to hear God’s call and walk in his path. Christian tradition also teaches that fasting is a great help to avoid sin. Fasting runs counter to the excessive consumerism and materialism that pervades our society today, for it encourages us to “do without” and find our ultimate fulfillment in God alone.
Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert in preparation for his public ministry. Through prayer and fasting, the Son of God prepared himself for the mission that lay before him. During the Lenten season, prayer, fasting and almsgiving prepares Christians to better celebrate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord.
In his Lenten message of 2009, the late Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that fasting helps to open our eyes to the conditions in which many of our brothers and sisters live throughout the world. By experiencing some pangs of hunger ourselves through voluntary fasting, we are better able to stand in solidarity with those who are hungry every day, or are suffering from the consequences of poverty in other ways. Pope Benedict XVI concluded by saying that: “Fasting is a spiritual practice that needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.”
Today’s Gospel tells of the temptations that Jesus endured during his forty days of fasting in the desert (Matthew 4:1 11). How does He do it? How does Jesus remain so resolute in the face of temptation? Why is He so strong while we are so weak? In our Second Reading, from his Letter to the Romans (Romans 5:1219), St. Paul compares and contrasts the great strength of Jesus with the weakness of Adam. Paul perceives Jesus as the “New Adam,” born of the “New Eve”, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Adam’s sin of disobedience (Original Sin) brought death. Jesus’ conquering of sin and death with perfect obedience and total trust in the Father brings forth new and eternal life. Sin began with the tree at Eden, and sin would be destroyed with the tree (Cross) at Calvary.
What kind of Lent will you have this year? Will you surrender to temptations as Adam did, or will you fast and pray with Jesus, keeping your Lenten promises for the forty days until the beginning of the Sacred Triduum on Holy Thursday? Are we trying to live on bread alone, without God in our lives? Are we putting God to the test, demanding things of Him that we do not expect from ourselves? Are we worshipping false gods, just as Satan hoped Jesus would? Lent is our forty days in the desert. We come here with and for the Lord. As we begin this Lent, let us honestly seek to find out who we are, who we are not, and what God calls us to become. And lets be mindful of the words we heard as the ashes were placed on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!”