Growing In Faith Through Fasting
“What are you giving up for Lent?” Each year at the beginning of this season I hear this question repeated again and again. It is a question which I am often uncomfortable answering, not because I haven’t made plans for my own spiritual growth, but because I strongly believe that our Lenten practices are best accomplished when we keep our focus on our own efforts, not worrying about what our neighbor is doing. There is also that Gospel reading that we hear each year on Ash Wednesday that encourages us to pray, fast and give alms in secret.
Add to this the fact that many times when a person is truly working on improving an area of their life that is need of healing, it is not something they necessarily would like to be publicly known. Imagine, for example, the person who answered the question, “I’m giving up pornography for Lent, and hopefully for the rest of my life.” An awkward silence follows.
Catholic practices of giving up things for Lent and abstaining from meat on certain days are often misunderstood. It seems many of us see them simply as a set of random rules to be followed or a contest to be won. I reality, these practices are meant to give us the space to focus on our relationship with God. In my own parish I would guess that the majority of parishioners are well past the age of being required by Church law to fast and abstain during Lent, at least when it comes to food. The Church wisely limits fasting from food when it is likely to cause physical harm to a person, this is why children, the elderly and the sick are not required to participate. This doesn’t mean, however, that when one reaches the age of 60 he can just live it up during Lent by having feasts every Friday. We are still meant to find ways to deny ourselves, so as to create a larger space for God in our lives.
A few ways that I might suggest would be fasting from television, or at least certain things on television. I know many people who spend hours watching news networks and getting worked up about politicians. It always ends in the confessional. Fasting from television could open up time for prayer. How about giving up time on the internet? I can easily sit down at my computer and spend hours just wandering from site to site. I’m sure God would love to have some of that time. For many of the younger generation I can imagine a difficult fast would be turning off the cell phone. For many men the challenge could be to fast from inappropriate images by turning our eyes away from them immediately when they are encountered. For many women perhaps the challenge is to fast from shopping for the sake of shopping. The point is, whatever takes time that could be given to God and to others, that is likely something to consider fasting from this Lent.
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