Fasting Forwards

Dear all,

Easter is approaching, and we are now near the end of the Lenten season. And Passion Sunday on April 6th marks a change in the Lenten mood as we begin to reflect more seriously on the journey of Jesus toward the cross. 

So let me ask you a question How has your Lenten fasting been going? For many, as you will all know well, Lent is synonymous with giving things up! How many of have given up chocolate? Or wine? Have you given in yet and indulged?

Lent is an important part of our Christian year. It is a period of fasting and abstinence, as prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, to help us prepare for Holy Week and Easter. 

Traditionally it is a time to give things up, and yet even for Christians this has often come to mean giving up something like chocolate or alcohol, rather than taking on a regime of actual fasting and abstinence from meat or dairy products. And yet fasting is still the rule in the Church of England. 

Giving up one thing more

I’m writing this not long after Ash Wednesday, and I’m assuming that by the time you’re reading this you have got through most of the Lenten fast, and hopefully without having succumbed to temptation! But now, as we continue through the last part of Lent and journey through Holy Week and Easter and then on through the Easter season, I want to encourage us all to give up one more thing, something suggested by Pope Francis.

Before I come to that, I want you look at fasting from God’s point of view – for God has a great deal to say about what he wants from fasting in the Old Testament.

Isaiah tells us (58.6-7, from one of the readings set for Ash Wednesday) how God has a lot to say about the kind of fasting he wants: Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover him? 

Nothing about giving up alcohol or meat, or even chocolate, there! What God is concerned about is the lives of those who suffer, those who go without, those in need. And the problem was that God’s people had become indifferent to the suffering of others, hence the need for Isaiah to remind them God’s expectations were.

The problem of indifference

But indifference is not a problem confined to the people of Israel in the Old Testament. It is very much a problem today – it probably always will be, human nature being what it is. But as Christians we can set an example and during this Lent reflect on our own lives and our own attitudes and determine to make a difference to the world we live in. And then ensure we keep that up as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus throughout the Easter season.

So back to Pope Francis on the issue of fasting. This is actually from his Lenten address of 2015, though I only came across these words recently. He said that if we are going to fast from anything in Lent, then more than sweets or alcohol we should fast from indifference towards others. He said:

Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.

Describing the phenomenon that he calls the globalisation of indifference, Pope Francis went on to say that: whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades…We end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.

It seems to me that Pope Francis’s call to fast from indifference is something not just for Lent, but for all year round. As we now conclude the Lenten season and recall what Jesus has done for us, let us fast from indifference and obey God’s call to reach out to the poor, the homeless, the marginalised, the lonely. Jesus did so much for us on the cross, so much were we in need of his love – God calls us in response to not be indifferent to the needs of others but to show our joy at the resurrection by reaching out to them with the love of Jesus.

Yours in Christ,
Father Jerry