Saint John of God, Religious (Optional Memorial)
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish. (Isaiah 58:6)
Of the three practices that we focus on in Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—it’s the last that we can find the most challenging, especially if it means going beyond putting some money in the poor box. While many of us are already in the practice of giving to the needy during Lent, it can be harder to find opportunities to serve the poor in person.
Often we begin Lent with a sincere desire to help people who are in need, but somehow the whole season gets away from us before we are able to find a way to serve. With today being just the third day of Lent, we still have plenty of time to make a concrete decision about what we will do!
Are you not sure where to start? Maybe a call to your parish office would be a good first step. Ask about opportunities to help with a parish clothing drive, a food pantry, or the local Society of St. Vincent de Paul. More than simply giving a donation—which is always good—look for opportunities that bring you into direct contact with those less fortunate than you. That’s when your heart changes—when you look into the eyes of those you are serving and recognize them as your brothers and sisters.
If you don’t find something at first, keep looking. Check your diocesan newspaper, or visit the local charities in your area. Catholic newspapers often have listings of area charities that are looking for volunteers. Who knows? Maybe you can even turn this into a permanent thing once Lent is over. After all, Jesus reminds us that the poor we will always have with us, not just during Lent (Matthew 26:11)!
Today’s passage from Isaiah is a dramatic reminder that Jesus is looking at the motives of our hearts just as much as our outward actions. As much as he loves it when we fast, he is also looking for people who are seeking to set the oppressed free, share their bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked (Isaiah 58:6-7). What’s more, if we do this, God promises, “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed. . . . You shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!” (58:8, 9).
“Jesus, show me how I can serve you in the poor and needy this Lent.”
Psalm 51:3-6, 18-19
Matthew 9:14-15
Saint John-Paul II
Pope from 1978 to 2005
Angelus on March 10, 1996
“Then they will fast”
Among the penitential practices that the Church suggests to us above all during this Lenten time is fasting. It consists in a special sobriety in the food we eat, while ensuring care for the needs of our body. This is a traditional form of penance, which has lost none of its significance, and which we perhaps need to rediscover, above all in that part of the world and in the milieus where food not only abounds, but where we at times encounter illnesses due to overeating.
Obviously, penitential fasting is very different from therapeutic diets. But as it is, we can see in it a therapy for the soul. For when it is practiced as a sign of conversion, it facilitates the interior effort to make oneself available to listening to God. To fast is to reaffirm for oneself what Jesus replied to Satan, when the latter tempted him at the end of forty days of fasting in the desert: “Not on bread alone is man to live but on every utterance that comes from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4:4) Today, especially in our well-to-do societies, it is difficult for us to understand the meaning of this word of the gospel. Instead of pacifying our needs, the consumer society creates ever new ones, even engendering disproportionate activism... Among other meanings, penitential fasting has precisely the aim of helping us to recover interiority.
The effort towards moderation in food also extends to other things that are not necessary, and it greatly aids the life of the spirit. Sobriety, recollection and prayer go together. This principle can be appropriately applied to our use of the mass media. They are unquestionably useful, but they must not become the “masters” over our life. In so many families, the television seems to replace rather than facilitate dialogue among the persons! A certain “fasting” in this area can be salutary, either so as to give more time to reflection and prayer or to cultivate human relations.