Friday after Ash
Wednesday
(Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matthew 9:14-15)
Some wonder about the need to fast. They point to Isaiah’s critique of Judah’s
fasting in the first reading today and say working for social justice is what God
requires. For them serving sandwiches in
a soup kitchen is a much better practice of Lenten piety than not eating
ourselves.
But fasting is an age-old way of expressing love. Through it one lays aside attention to her
own needs, to assist others. People deny
themselves of sleep – a form of fasting -- to attend to a sick friend through
the night. Others do not eat as a kind
of social protest to express solidarity with a group suffering persecution.
We do not fast –at least for religious reasons –as an
exercise of our endurance. No, we attach
fasting to a felt need like expressing compassion for a group in distress or
showing love for God. We rightly see
fasting along with almsgiving and prayer as part of a three-stranded rope that
supports the heaviest tension. We fast
and pray. We fast and give our food (or
the money saved by not eating) to the poor.
In these ways we please God and neighbor.
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