Is fasting relevant today?

Recently, it came to my ears that a sort of `Dictionary of Political Correctness’ has been published in America. It was not technical literature, but rather a satirical demonstration of how one can find alternatives to vulgarisms or words that might otherwise cause tension when one is concerned with prestige. Thus, for example, he calls the homeless alternatively `housed,’ fools `emotionally different people,’ he found a synonym for a drunk as `chemically insecure,’ he refers to a civilian unluckily shot in war as `second-hand damage,’ and so on.

Why am I mentioning this! Even the Lord Jesus in today’s Gospel seems to make light of the reality. When asked about His disciples’ non-observance of fasting, He defends them, `Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast.” (Mt. 9:15).

It is probably not difficult to explain the meaning of Jesus’ words. The essence of fasting, that is, abstaining from food, was to prepare the Jew for the coming of the Messiah. If therefore, the Messiah had come in Jesus, there was no further reason to fast. On the contrary. It was a joy that was to characterize the presence of the Messiah. At the same time, however, it reveals that the fast was not over. His time would yet come in the moments of his suffering and death.
Today, almost 2000 years after the redemptive death of Jesus Christ, we ask: why fast today? The Church identifies the second coming of Christ as the reason, so it is an eschatological fast. Christ will come again in glory.
The discipline of Lent has been in the Church since its beginning. Even the early Christians fasted three in a week. They were aware of the importance of fasting. It is not only for physical health when the body regenerates. It is much more beneficial for the inner life. For fasting intensifies prayer, is itself a prayer of body and soul, and increases alertness and openness to God. Fasting – physical fasting – keeps open, as it were, the wound that keeps us moving towards God. We do not seek immediate satisfaction from men’s desires or worldly beauty. It makes us feel our most bottomless determination that we belong to God and that he alone can perfectly fulfill our expectations and desires. That is why it is also essential for us to revive the desire to belong to God precisely through fasting.
But there is one more question: what are the motives for our fasting? Certainly, the purest ones. Not for external recognition and glory. Jesus himself condemned that. But what about fasting, which I take to be a cosmetic adjustment? I mean, I want to fast for the love of God, but something whispers to me that it’s also appropriate to use it for a good line, etc.? Don’t let that discourage you. Fast anyway.

A sure brother said to the hermit Poimen: “Father, if I give my brother a little bread or something else, the demons will devalue it: I give it to please the people.” “In a certain town, there were two peasants. One sowed little seed – even unclean seed; the other saved and sowed nothing. Which of the two will survive when hunger strikes?” His brother told him that the one who sowed the tiny and unclean seed. The old man said to this: “Let us sow a little seed, though unclean, lest we die of hunger.”

We can hardly get all our actions – all our self-denials, to be pure. We humbly acknowledge that the seed we sow is unclean because of our selfish motives; it will nevertheless bring forth a harvest. Those who think they can love quite selflessly are often more likely to control and appropriate the other.

So let us be encouraged by this example, let us reflect on fasting in our lives, let us attempt to bring the appropriate intentions into it, and God will indeed bless our efforts generously.