Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church

“God loves a cheerful giver.” - 2 Corinthians 9:7b 

Prayer: Help me through Your grace and goodness, to enter into this Lenten season and be changed for the better. Changed to be more like You, to love like You love and to live more fully in Your love. Amen. 

Fasting to Be Changed

On this first Friday of the Lenten Season, Holy Mother Church gives us readings to reflect on the notion of fasting. Our first reading from Isaiah 58 opens up for us a moment in Israel’s past where they are wondering out loud to God, why does our fasting not seem to make any change? Why is nothing given to the people Israel for their deeds done? Scripture says it better, “Why do we fast, and You do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” 

God’s response is very direct, “Lo, on your fast days you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw.” And then God goes on to clarify the fasting that He wants, “Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them and not turning your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed.”

"And your wound shall quickly be healed." The wound of sin, injustice; the failures to love that exist in the world. When we do these things that God prompts us to do as fasting, God’s love, His Justice, and His mercy are able to break through, to shine into areas that His love was not previously shining. 

God’s desire is to bless all of us; to heal this wound of failure to love and injustice. He loves us with His entire self. He loves us from an infinite store of goodness and because of God’s goodness we should not be surprised that He bestows a blessing upon us when we do what is right and just. When our love strives to be like His love. The blessing is greater when our intentions are purer, but we might not experience the full blessing immediately. We lovingly resign ourselves to this as the best blessings are those we receive when we finally are at home with Him at the end of time. 

In our world today, fasting is seen by too many as a mere option. As an item I can include on my checklist ‘if I actually want to do it, but I really don’t have to if I don’t want to.’ But Jesus asks this of His disciples so that we can be changed. That there is greater love and justice in the world. That we experience, collectively, a greater sense of God’s goodness and love. Jesus says to the disciples of John (and referring to us), “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken from them, and then they will fast.” 

When we fast for love of God, it opens our hearts to a greater love of God. Those who we fast for experience the love of God shared as we pour it out for their sake. When our fasting is also merciful and restores justice as described in Isaiah, then the benefit to others is that much more tangible and immediate.

For our interior good we trust in God’s goodness knowing that He will bless us, but that blessing given to us ought not be our focus. Our focus should be on the manifestation or the making present of God’s goodness and love in the world. That this wound is healed. That together we more fully live in, with, and through His love. When we see and realize this in our lives and communities, the fruit of our fasting, will lead us to an increase in heartfelt praise of God for His goodness. 

May God richly bless you! 

-Fr. Jeremy 

[Full scripture quote 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, and purposed in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver [whose heart is in his giving]. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” 

Shared with me by some parishioners in response to this reflection: