Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Lately, I’ve been sensing a call to fast. This nudge from the Lord has grown stronger and stronger. That might sound strange, when we’ve just finished Lent and are living in the celebration of the Easter season. But, as Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB says, Lent should simply be an amplified version of our ordinary lives lived throughout the year. Lent isn’t the only season for fasting. I think the Lord is inviting me to a deeper level in my relationship with him through this particular discipline. Perhaps this invitation extends to you, too.
In our first reading today, we encounter several prophets and teachers in the Church at Antioch. The text says that while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit spoke to them. Could it be that this posture of worship and the practice of fasting created the necessary receptivity in these leaders such that they could hear the voice of God? I wonder if they would have heard the Spirit as clearly had they not been worshipping and fasting. The specific call of God in that moment was the consecration of Saul and Barnabas, a momentous event. Was it the worship and fasting, the discipline of these leaders, that opened the way for the evangelists to be sent off on their important mission? Later in the story in Acts, Paul (Saul) and Barnabas emulate what they experienced, “Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust” (Acts 14:23). Jesus’ disciples once encountered a demon possessed boy whom they tried to heal. When they could not, Jesus told them, “This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29). What do I miss, what do you miss, when we aren’t fully receptive to the voice of the Lord in humility? On the other hand, what abundant opportunities await us when we do submit ourselves to God in humility and in worship?
Fasting is a discipline of humility. When we fast, we essentially allow our needs, our appetites, our pleasure, our will to take a back seat to God’s will. When we fast, we tell God that we desire only what God desires. We set our desire aside and seek to become more receptive, through our fasting, to God’s will and desire for our lives and for God’s mission. As I’ve reflected on fasting recently, I’ve come to see it as a humbling practice that makes me more receptive to God. It’s also a way to experience more of God’s love as I practice hungering only for God. Perhaps fasting is a form of cleansing, too, that washes away the muck from my eyes, ears, and heart so that I can see, hear, perceive, and love God more clearly and dearly. Fasting helps us when we seek discernment, when we have seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our lives, when darkness presses in, when we have difficult relationships. Humbling ourselves opens the door for breakthrough in the challenges we face as it gives God more room to work in us. Fasting changes us so that we can be more available to God’s plans and purposes.
The Gospel of Matthew contains the familiar passage on prayer, almsgiving, and fasting that we read on Ash Wednesday. In Matthew 6:16, Jesus says, “When you fast. . .” Notice that Jesus says when not if. I’ll admit that for me it’s usually been an “if.” God invites us to practice spiritual disciplines for our sake. God doesn’t need us to practice them in some transactional way. Fasting, like any other spiritual discipline is an avenue to growth in holiness and a doorway to greater intimacy with God. God desires more of us, God desires that we know God’s love more fully, God desires us to look more and more like Jesus day by day. It’s a beautiful paradox of our faith that the more we give up the more we gain. Through fasting, we give up food or whatever it is, and we gain Christ in abundance. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). May it be our hunger for righteousness that calls us to fasting. Perhaps there’s no better time than the Easter season for fasting??
Elizabeth Wells