The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today touch on the emotion of mourning that may be experienced as we consider our neglect of life giving relationships with our neighbours.
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| The fast of mourning |
The reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah identifies false and true worship and fasting that leads to blessing.
* [58:6–12] Fasting is not genuine without reforming one’s way of life. A true social morality will ensure prosperity.1
The first part of Psalm 51 asks deliverance from sin, not just a past act but its emotional, physical, and social consequences. The second part seeks something more profound than wiping the slate clean: nearness to God, and living by the spirit of God.
* [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 of Matthew, Jesus addresses a question about fasting from the disciples of John the Baptist.
* [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
Larry Gillick, S.J. asks: “Did the disciples of John get the picture, get the answer?” Something new, different is in and with Jesus about just what the human response to God is and will be. Holiness has to do with a relationship with its responses rather than with a legal practice with its demands and expectations. It is received rather than achieved.
After listening to or reading the First Reading for today’s Eucharistic liturgy and today’s Gospel, fasting seems to be more than giving something up for the sake of getting something back. We can fast from such things as eating, drinking, watching, doing and or many other human activities and these are actually quite good. What about our fasting from eating from the delightful cookies of self-negativity and spiritual inferiority. How about fasting from drinking the fermented spirits of regret, past failures and disappointments. How about not watching the actions of self or others in a spirit of competition and compara-sinning. How about fasting from our not doing the works of caring for the lonely or lost, curing the broken and hurting, being present and receptive to the inconvenient and the awkward.4
Don Schwager quotes “True fasting,” by Saint 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)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 58:1-9 comments that when they left the Temple, they would just go back to following their selfish ways. In today’s first reading, Isaiah responds to this misguided approach. He tells the people about the kind of fasting that God wishes. He doesn’t condemn fasting, of course; he just doesn’t want us to detach it from its true meaning: reverence for God expressed in love of neighbor.
In prayer today, ask the Holy Spirit to help you find one way that you can practice this concrete kind of fasting. Do you know someone who is bound, oppressed, hungry, homeless, or naked? Reach out to them and “your light shall break forth like the dawn” (Isaiah 58:8).6
Friar Jude Winkler fleshes out the disappointment of the exiles returning to Jerusalem after the Exile in Babylon as they are addressed about their practices in Trito-Isaiah. The vertical and horizontal dimensions of our faith are always present. Friar Jude cites mourning, centering on Christ, and solidarity as opportunities for fasting.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares his own Enneagram Type as he hopes he has done enough inner work to be able to present a balanced picture.
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This insight in the Holy Idea of Holy Perfection; the Virtue of Serenity; and the Passion of Anger may be helpful as we grow to maturing in being type one or as the support community to help release the type ones we encounter to their True Self. In the fast we make from self serving action we may encounter the Spirit leading us to help bring freedom to others from their bondage.
References
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