Then the disciples of John approached him

5 JULY (Mt 9,14-17)

A very strong perennial human temptation is that of wanting to reduce the novelty of the Gospel in some religious practices drawn from tradition, that not even the Lord has ever approved. If for a moment we read the prophet Isaiah, we see that the Lord asks men quite a different fast. He asks him the fasting from every form of sin against his neighbour. To not sin against God in a direct way could be quite easy – it is true every transgression of the commandments is a sin against God. However, it is a sin against his will, his orders and his statutes. But it is not a direct sin against Him as the one that is committed violating the first three commandments – not to sin against man is truly impossible. We sin against man with omissions, with thoughts, words, and works, with the sight, with touch, with every part of our body, our spirit and our soul. With our whole being we sin against our brothers.

Well what does the Lord want as a true, authentic and religious fasting? Abstaining from every sin against our neighbour: “Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your labourers. Yes, your fast ends in quarrelling 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 honourable; If you honour 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, 2-14). 

If already many centuries before the Lord had written the law of love as the true fasting to practice, can Jesus imprison his Gospel, which is the perfect novelty of true, pure, holy and universal love, in some food and beverage to be abstained from?

Then the disciples of John approached him and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast (much), but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

However, Jesus, cannot tell the truth to a deaf, blind and stubborn people. With divine wisdom and Holy Spirit knowledge he postpones the response after his death. Using even a beautiful simile he says, in a rather incomprehensible way to his listeners, that the old religion and the most pure faith cannot coexist.

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