“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Joel 2:12
“Many people eat plenty and grow fat on it. Others abstain from some kinds of food in order to practise asceticism, and condemn those who eat. Put shortly, they have only hazy ideas why they should eat or why they should abstain.
We, on the other hand, when we fast, give up wine and meat, not because we detest them, as though using them were a crime, but because we hoping for an eternal reward. We willingly go without things that please the senses in order to be able to enjoy the pleasures of the spiritual table: we sow in tears today in order to be able to reap in joy tomorrow.
Do not despise those who eat, when they are eating in order to keep their strength up. Do not condemn those who drink wine in moderation; it does their stomachs good. Never regard meat as an evil in itself… If you abstain from those foods, do not do so as if they were unclean. Rather, think of them as a good thing which you are content to give up for love of a far greater spiritual benefit.”
Cyril of Jerusalem in Catecheses, 4, 27ff (PG 22, 489) in Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World, ed. by Thomas Spidlik (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1994) 75.
Are you ready for Lent, the season when we return to God and focus on fasting, giving to the poor, and prayer? It starts Wednesday.
Consider the fasting part today in this light. It’s giving up a good thing “for love of a far greater spiritual benefit.” It’s a pathway to greater gain.
To grow a heart of compassion linked to generosity this Lent, perhaps we need to jettison something first.
Think of something to fast from in order to feast on “the pleasures of the spiritual table?” Take time to pray about this today.
I’m doing the same between teaching sessions in Egypt. I love this season of year but I think it must started with prayer.