Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of evil. ~ Joel 2:12-13

Fasting is a form of discipline during prayer that I never really practiced before our family's conversion.  I know that Protestants do accept the practice of fasting because of its overwhelming biblical support.  But it was never something that I attempted to do.  Self-disciplines like that were kind of foreign to me.  Now that I'm Catholic, I have sort of a different view of fasting.  My spiritual relationship with God has both broadened and deepened through disciplines in prayer, namely - penance.  Fasting is only one of the many forms of penance, but it's one that stands out to me.  One of the main reasons for this is because of the number of times fasting is mentioned in the Scriptures.  I thought it'd be a good idea to go through some of the Scripture passages that mention fasting to get a good context in order to better understand its purpose. 

Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sacklothes, and earth upon them.  And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.  ~ Nehemiah 9:1-2

The thing that I noticed immediately in this passage was the fact that the Israelites "confessed their sins".  They were seeking restoration with God.  I think this is key; I'll explain in a minute why.

Then tidings reached the king of Ninevah, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackloth, and sat in ashes.  And he made a proclamation and published throughout Ninevah, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands.  ~ Jonah 3:6-9 (RSV)

Again we see an example of fasting because of sins that were committed in the past.  The whole purpose of this discipline is what the king of Ninevah said in his decree: "Let every one turn from his evil way".  That's called, of course, REPENTANCE.  When the Ninevites realized the sins that they had committed against God, they immediately "proclaimed a fast" in repentance for what they had done.  The same happened with the Israelites - and more than once!  They were constantly falling from God's command, getting in a bind, and then declaring another fast to come back to God. 

We as humans, with our weak nature, are constantly falling into sin.  When we fast and pray, we should be repentant of our sins.  Without repentance, everything would be worthless.  We should constantly be renouncing our sins and turning back to Christ.

I think I'll do another post on this next Sunday.  In this entry I focused on fasting and repentance, but there are also other different aspects to fasting that I'd like to get into.  Repenting isn't the only purpose of fasting.  Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness - and he was completely sinless!  That'll be the main focus for my next entry.

Lenten blessings,
~the Catholic apologist

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Posted by kay_vardeleon