March 4, 2009

‘He Fasted’ A reflection on the Pope’s 2009 Lenten Message

A spiritual paradox: Making Lent fruitful through fasting

By Deacon Hugo Patino

Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 Lenten message focused on the value and meaning of fasting, and his message is one to carefully reflect on as a way to help us make this Lenten season a fruitful one. 

The pope’s message reflects the wisdom and interconnectedness that exists between the three Lenten penitential practices: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  For fasting to bear the right fruit, we need to consider all three practices.  For it is in prayer that God will help us to determine what our fasting will be about. It is in prayer that we will receive His grace to persevere through the 40 days. And it is in prayer that we will find how this fasting will bring a sign of Christ’s presence to those in need. 

We anchor in prayer, therefore, our response to the Lord’s invitation for self-denial.  It is through self-denial that we create that void or room in our life, so that it can be filled with new life. The fruit that this new life in us produces gets manifested not only in ourselves, but also in how we share God’s gifts to us with those who are in need.

Pope Benedict referenced St. Basil, who pointed out that fasting was ordained by our Creator to Adam and Eve since he told them to feel free to eat from every tree in the garden with the exception of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.  It was seemingly a small sacrifice or self-denial that God was asking, that is to abstain from the fruit of just one of the trees.  And yet the tempter succeeded in creating doubt: why not eat something that “was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom (Gn 3:6)?”  The things we might be asked by the Lord to give up this Lent may also be good, pleasing and desirable.  From a worldly perspective, denying ourselves of it may not “make sense.”  So we are called to prayerfully ask for God’s grace to have the humility and faith to accept—and actually embrace—his will.

We need to candidly and honestly ask the Lord to tell us what he would like us to do, and then follow his will. As the pope’s message reminds us, we are to do our fasting “in secret” for our Father who sees in secret will repay us.  We are not to show off the small sacrifice we are making to gain the esteem of others.  Our Lenten sacrifice is an offering to God, not a selfish offering, for otherwise we will have already received our reward (Mt 6:1-16).

The fruits of a prayerful fast include the divine therapy that heals us from that which prevents us from doing God’s will, as noted in the pope’s message. By cooperating with God’s grace we are able to free ourselves from something that we thought we needed.  We grow in our ability to say “yes” to the Lord.  We are freer to live a fuller life (Jn 10:10) with perhaps one fewer attachment.  We also become more aware and grow in our compassion—even if in a small and temporary way—for what others deal with almost every day.  Have we considered the kind of fasting that the migrant worker endures, or the kind of fasting the family of the unemployed or the homeless go through?

The fruits of a prayerful fast, however, go beyond ourselves and reach others.   The enormous and growing economic crisis around us is even bigger far away from us.  What if we put to work the money saved by fasting so that it brings Christ’s message of love to others?  This is, as the pope’s message pointed out, what early Christians did. The opportunities are endless: whether in our own neighborhood, or in one of the local food banks, or through an international outreach effort like Operation Rice Bowl.  All we need to do is to prayerfully, candidly and honestly ask the Lord how we may help.  For if we follow through with what God asks of us, we will be delighted when we come into his kingdom and he reminds us of what we did for him (Mt 25:35-45).

Deacon Hugo Patino is associate director of deacon personnel for Hispanic ministry for the Denver Archdiocese’s Diaconate Office.