Friday after Ash Wednesday

Today's Mass Readings

Several years ago, as a young young adult, I broke up with the first serious boyfriend I had ever had. Breaking up in that instance was the right thing to do, but I still remember feeling quite physically ill and a bit like I was in mourning (for the relationship that would never be? We had thought about getting married, after all). I felt so bad, in fact, that I went for a whole week where I did not eat. I couldn’t eat – couldn’t face eating food. It was a self-imposed fast that reflected the depth of my emotion and the toll that both the relationship and its demise took on me. It was the first time I had ever truly experienced the connection that exists between mental and emotional well-being, and physical well-being. Silly as it might seem to the readers out there, this memory of breaking up was the first one I thought of when I read the gospel for today. In answer to questions from John’s disciples who fast quite a bit, Jesus says in Matthew 9:14-15 that of course his disciples aren’t fasting while he, the bridegroom, is around! But there will come a time, he says ominously, when the bridegroom will no longer be with them and they will fast. Of course.

If my feeling for what was, after all, a short-lived relationship induced a week-long fast, how much more might a disruption in one’s relationship with Jesus lead to fasting? The bridegroom will be taken away from them – the relationship will be severed, says Jesus. We know the ending of the story, of course – that the relationship continues. But it continues in a radically different way, through the Holy Spirit, in the Church, via the Sacraments and prayer. It isn’t like it was 2000 years ago when Jesus physically walked the earth.

So, the gospel suggests that fasting occurs partly because of a relationship “break-up”. During Lent, it is good to remember that relationships generally can be broken for all sorts of reasons: inattentiveness, failings on the part of either person, grudges, the need for “room”, etc. The same is true of a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The psalmist reminds us that God welcomes a humbled and contrite heart (Psalm 51), and fasting helps us to focus on the broken relationship and aim toward fixing it.

When I broke up with my boyfriend, my fasting was directed toward the broken relationship, but it was an inward fast directly solely at myself and my feelings. The fast that Christians undertake, though, is not meant to be inwardly driven. It is not meant to culture selfishness and greed, as the first reading reminds us (Isaiah 58:1-9a). Rather, our fasting is meant to direct us toward all the good ways we are expected to live as Christians: feeding, sheltering and clothing those in need, and “not turning your back on your own.”

During this Lenten season, consider ways that your fast can become directed toward acts of love toward others in the community, rather than be directed toward inward navel-gazing. Make it an opportunity to heal broken relationships, both with God and other people.

- Jana M. Bennett