Then they will fast on that day

MONDAY 20 JANUARY (Mk 2,18-22)

Christian fast, the real fast, is the life governed in every manifestation of it by the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. If we connect fasting to each of these seven virtues, we will find a new way of fasting. The prophet Isaiah unites fasting, justice, mercy, charity and commandments. Let’s listen to what he reveals: “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).

To St. Paul fasting is the true imitation of Christ Jesus: “Now as you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also. I say this not by way of command, but to test the genuineness of your love by your concern for others. For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2Cor 8,1.9,14). One deprives himself of the superfluous so that the brothers have the essential. But for this it is necessary to abandon any vice that devours the substances more than the ox the grass. With a single vice eradicated one man could give life to ten of his brothers.

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.”

Before the world of poverty forced to fast every day of the year, our liturgical fasting is useless. It is urgent to give evangelical truth to this practice. It might only be given if the Christian begins a real fight to free himself from his vices, the first of all that of great vanity. Large amounts of capital are spent and debts are also made to cure this vice. Among us the culture of the most ephemeral ephemeral that obscures our eyes and makes our heart of stone, rendering it incapable of seeing the futility in which we consume our existence preparing it for eternal fire, reigns.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, help us to get out of the hell of vanity and futility.