Fast and offense

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today connect us to the world around us through the discipline of fasting and awareness of our faults.

Fast and our community

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah lays out guidelines for authentic fasting that leads to blessing.

 * [58:1–5] The prophet is commanded to condemn the formalism of the people, specifically their hypocritical fasting.
* [58:6–12] Fasting is not genuine without reforming one’s way of life. A true social morality will ensure prosperity.1

Psalm 51 is a Penitential Psalm, used to pray for the removal of the disorder that sin has brought.

* [Psalm 51] A lament, the most famous of the seven Penitential Psalms, prays for the removal of the personal and social disorders that sin has brought. The poem has two parts of approximately equal length: Ps 51:3–10 and Ps 51:11–19, and a conclusion in Ps 51:20–21. The two parts interlock by repetition of “blot out” in the first verse of each section (Ps 51:3, 11), of “wash (away)” just after the first verse of each section (Ps 51:4) and just before the last verse (Ps 51:9) of the first section, and of “heart,” “God,” and “spirit” in Ps 51:12, 19. The first part (Ps 51:3–10) asks deliverance from sin, not just a past act but its emotional, physical, and social consequences. The second part (Ps 51:11–19) seeks something more profound than wiping the slate clean: nearness to God, living by the spirit of God (Ps 51:12–13), like the relation between God and people described in Jer 31:33–34. Nearness to God brings joy and the authority to teach sinners (Ps 51:15–16). Such proclamation is better than offering sacrifice (Ps 51:17–19). The last two verses express the hope that God’s good will toward those who are cleansed and contrite will prompt him to look favorably on the acts of worship offered in the Jerusalem Temple (Ps 51:19 [20–21]).2 

In the Gospel from Matthew, Jesus addresses a question about fasting.

* [9:15] Fasting is a sign of mourning and would be as inappropriate at this time of joy, when Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom, as it would be at a marriage feast. Yet the saying looks forward to the time when Jesus will no longer be with the disciples visibly, the time of Matthew’s church. Then they will fast: see Didache 8:1.3 

A passage from the Didache and a commentary describes the practice of fasting in the early Church.

In the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee in Luke 18, the Pharisee reminds God "I fast twice a week." Both Jews and Christians fasted twice a week, but on different days. The day of (Jewish) preparation (for the Sabbath) was the sixth day; thus Christians of the early church fasted on Wednesdays and Friday, in contrast with the Jews. The "hypocrites" of verse 1 may be a rebuke to Christians who continued to observe Jewish customs.4 

Dennis Hamm, S.J. asks was Jesus pro-fasting or contra-fasting? He offers that, as with all smart people, for him it depended on the context.

 in describing Jesus’ sense of his career change from craftsman to prophet with a mission, Luke reports that Jesus, while reading from Isaiah 61, makes a point of including a line from Isaiah 58:6--“I have been sent …  to set at liberty those who are oppressed.” And when we look up that verse, we discover why that addition was important to Jesus, or at least to Luke.  For in this chapter the prophet, speaking for the Lord God, gives a quite specific context.5

Don Schwager quotes “True fasting,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD.

"All the endeavors for fasting are concerned not about the rejection of various foods as unclean, but about the subjugation of inordinate desire and the maintenance of neighborly love. Charity especially is guarded - food is subservient to charity, speech to charity, customs to charity, and facial expressions to charity. Everything works together for charity alone." (excerpt from Letter 243, 11)6 

The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 58:1-9 notes that often we begin Lent with a sincere desire to help people who are in need, but somehow the whole season gets away from us before we are able to find a way to serve.

Today’s passage from Isaiah is a dramatic reminder that Jesus is looking at the motives of our hearts just as much as our outward actions. As much as he loves it when we fast, he is also looking for people who are seeking to set the oppressed free, share their bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked (Isaiah 58:6-7).7 

Friar Jude Winkler provides the background to the post Exile experience that involved fasting. Fasting is not primarily getting ourselves in order. The other is more important than ourselves. Friar Jude shares the connection of Jesus fasting to His marriage to the Church and human behaviour when we mourn.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shared theologian Sallie McFague’s model of the universe as the body of God. Let’s continue exploring this concept and its implications. Fr Richard observes the incognito appearance of Christ wherever we see human compassion for the outcast and the vulnerable.

 Suddenly to see some aspect of creation naked, as it were, in its elemental beauty, its thereness and suchness, stripped of all conventional names and categories and uses, is an experience of transcendence and immanence inextricably joined. This possibility is before us in each and every piece and part of creation: it is the wonder at the world that young children have and that poets and artists retain. It is to experience the ordinary as extraordinary. This is experiencing the world as God’s body, the ordinariness of all bodies contained within and empowered by the divine.8

Radical love for the “unworthy”—the foreigner lying injured on the road (or a destroyed rainforest, the few remaining individuals in a species, or a hungry child)—is also an image that melds divine transcendence and immanence. God is present when and where the oppressed are liberated, the sick are healed, the outcast are invited in.

References

1	(n.d.). Isaiah, chapter 58 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Isaiah/58:1
2	(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 51. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Psalms/51:3
3	(n.d.). Matthew, chapter 9. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/matthew/9:14
4	(n.d.). The Didache with Commentary. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://www.orthodox.cn/patristics/apostolicfathers/didache_en.htm
5	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved March 8, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
6	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
7	(2019, March 8). Daily Meditations - The Word Among Us. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/03/08 /
8	(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: March 2019 - Center for Action and .... Retrieved March 8, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/03/