Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

21 JANUARY (Mk 2,18-22)

Fasting had already been purified by the prophet. From fasting understood as the deprivation of some food, to the fasting presented as the elimination of all evil perpetrated against one’s neighbor and as a work of great charity, compassion, mercy and forgiveness to all.

Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; 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; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined homesteads.” If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice – Then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Is 58,1-14).

The one the prophet Isaiah presents us is a truly new fasting. It is a fasting of complete abstention from sin so that man is devoted entirely to love, justice, great charity and every good work in favour of his neighbour.

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

Jesus is extremely prudent. The Pharisees did not live of Holy Scripture, but of tradition, often in strong contrast with the Word of the Lord. Jesus cannot appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah. They would have accused him of hostile attitude to their religion and they could have even stoned him. He replies that one must always have an eye of pity and compassion for the wedding guests, if they do not fast. One does not go to a wedding for fasting. A feast is not a time for deprivations.

The wedding will end soon and then even his disciples will fast. But what is the fasting of the disciples? It is their total abandonment to the providence of the Father. The one the Father offers them every day, that will be their dinner and their lunch. Their fasting will be the complete absence of all desire about food and taste. It will also be a great sobriety and temperance in the use of things of this world. The new faith needs new ways. The full truth that Jesus came to bring into hearts cannot exist and express itself in old and ancient forms that do not give life.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints teach us the true fasting.