Good. It was Ash Wednesday. You were supposed to be.
Ash Wednesday is one of two days of mandatory fast under current Church law. (The other is Good Friday.) Neither day of fasting is severe. In fact, the reduction in food required by law is quite mild.
This is not how it has always been, though. There used to be many more days of customary fasting in Lent. In fact, you basically had to fast for the whole of Lent under universal law.
Sometimes fasting has also been much more severe than it is now.
And that’s okay. There is no one right way to do fasting, and the same amount is not always suitable for everybody in every time and every place, which makes it a good thing that Christ didn’t mandate a particular amount of manner of fasting for his followers. He simply said
And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you [Matt. 6:16-18].
The general manner in which Jesus addressed fasting allowed his Church to adjust the requirements of fasting to meet the changing needs of society.
It’d be really hard–in a developed society today–to mandate a whole month of severe fasting for the entire populace.
For example, if you required people to fast all day and only eat at night then people would get up (or stay up) to eat before it was light and then be tired during they day, perform their job duties sluggishly from lack of sleep and food, and then drive home at 90 miles an hour in a hunger-induced panic to get their evening meal, causing bunches of traffic accidents.
If the only fasting requirement was that you not eat during the day then people would gorge themselves at night, actually gain weight during the month of fasting, and make each night a sleepless Mardi Gras, figuring they’d sleep on the weekends.
How do I know this?
BECAUSE IT’S WHAT HAPPENS IN SAUDI ARABIA EVERY RAMADAN.
Unfortunately, the specificity with which Muhammad is held to have mandated the Ramadan fast makes it difficult or impossible to adapt the institution to the needs of a modern society.
It’s easy for us today to look at the Ash Wednesday and Good Friday fasts as not very much to ask–perhaps even too little to ask–but more severe fasting for long periods of time causes its own problems. It’s one thing to keep a strict fast when the pace of life is slow and you’re in a pre-industrial society and don’t have to get behind the wheel of a car while you’re ravening with hunger.
But those kinds of long, more severe, society-wide fasts are not suited to the living conditions we find ourselves in today in much of the world.
Whether or not the Church always adapts its laws on these matters wisely, I’m so glad that the Church has the Christ-given freedom to adapt them.
I followed the letter of the law on this one and had two really small meals, and one normal one. I know many more pious folk would scoff at my *ahem* fast, and I even felt a bit like a slacker.
But then around 3:00 pm or so it hit me, ‘Man am I freakin hungry!’ I know it wasn’t REAL hunger like those who don’t have enough food feel, but as a person who really struggles with temperance and loves food to the max; it was the most hunger I’ve felt in a while.
If the spirit of the law was to sacrifice something and to feel that in our flesh so that we might reflect on Christ’s sacrifice….mission very mildly and humbly accomplished.
And I think there’s something to be said for not overdoing it. In past years I’ve tried to be more rigorous and I constantly found myself thinking about food (or the lack of) the entire day to the point of obsession. But this modest fast imparted to me a few hours of hunger, which instead of making me crazy, actually made me reflect on WHY I was hungry and WHY I was doing this.
I am with Jimmy; I am glad that the church gives us guidelines on stuff like this, but with the freedom to adapt. It allows us to follow the spirit of the law more closely and probably provides us with a more customized way to perform these mortifications so that God can meet us where we are.
Neither day of fasting is severe. In fact, the reduction in food required by law is quite mild.
True. This is more food than I’m currently eating on my diet top lose weight.
Italics off.
One of the things my mother taught us while growing up was a reflection on her time as an aerobics & dance instructor.
She was amazed that she could get a bunch of women (and some men) to stand in place and roll their shoulders with their arms outstretched for the duration of a couple of “jazzersize” songs. Her reflection was that these same people would do this to get rid of some sag around their triceps, but if you asked them to pray orans or even standard “hands together” for the sake of world peace, they’d laugh at her, think she was crazy, and refuse to do it (probably with some excuse that “you can’t impose that on me!”).
The same holds for fasting. People that will cut out bread and carbs or only eat grapefruit, just so they can drop a few pounds and potentially (not definitely) live a few more years. Ask these same people to only eat bread and drink water for a day, in order to attain eternal life, and they’ll think you’re a throw-back adherrant to some “hokey religion and ancient weapons”.
Fasting is an ancient weapon!
And much neater than a blaster.
Good points, Jamie. In a similar vein, many people find the thought of confessing to a priest too humiliating to even consider (What? Reveal all that personal stuff to someone I barely know?), but will pay out the nose to spill their guts in dubious therapy sessions.
Seeing a priest isn’t “chic”, I guess.
The Ramadan-style fast might be a disaster, but the old-style Catholic fast might not be. My brother-in-law is a Benedictine monk in Norcia, where they eat only one meal in the evening and a small breakfast in the morning, and they seem to do OK. My brother-in-law does not himself eat the breakfast, and he’s OK. In fact, another of my brothers-in-law, currently a grad student, eats only one meal per day, in the evening, and he’s OK. Eastern Rite Catholics today observe an even harsher fast than old-timey Catholics, and they’re OK.
I’m with Jimmy that it’s a blessing the Church can adapt laws to fit the times, and I don’t really have the global wisdom necessary to know what our times require, but it’s not clear from experience that a modern industrial society automatically excludes the possibility of an old-style Catholic Lenten fast. Perhaps other considerations come in to play to exlude it as a prudent option.
Also, there is nothing to keep an individual from going beyond the law and fasting as they see fit.
SG is right. I never crave steak and chocolate milk except on Ash Wednesday and Fridays in Lent. I do think, though, the rules on fasting approach legalism. Our “fast” day (note: DAY) permits us more food than most of the world gets in two or three days.
Adalbert de Vogue wrote a book entitled “To Love Fasting: The Monastic Experience.”
He describes the physical and psychological experiences and effects (and benefits) of regular fasting.
It is a fascinating read.
Nice Star Wars reference there, Jamie. 🙂
“It’s one thing to keep a strict fast when the pace of life is slow and you’re in a pre-industrial society and don’t have to get behind the wheel of a car while you’re ravening with hunger.”
Hmm… In olden times, people generally had to walk everywhere, do hard labor, and work some muscles even to get their water supply. On an empty stomach. If anything, the old fasting regulations seem to me even less suitable for our forefathers than for us.
Kevin, I think Jimmy’s point is that the types of work we engage in today are less physical and more mental, thus the decline in productivity in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan. And also that it’s more dangerous to be behind the wheel of a car with a fasting-addled brain than behind the wheel of a plow.
Technically, I’m pretty sure plows don’t have wheels.
But you know what I mean. (or, if you don’t, chalk it up to residual brain-addlement from yesterday’s fasting)
Does anyone know the actual history of church rules about Lenten fasting? I’m curious.
It isn’t so much as I’m hungry as that I’m reaching for food on auto-pilot and have to stop myself.
OK, here’s a mindbender for you–how about WANTING to fast and not being able to because you’re pregnant/nursing?
When I was whining about this yesterday (“But I WANT to fast, God!”) I suddenly realized that I wasn’t enjoying the extra food anyway–thereby making it into a penance–and if I were fasting I would be tempted to thoughts of vanity, like “Wonder how many pounds I can drop this Lent!”
Ain’t it great how that works?
Martin,
Here’s a pretty good link on the history of Lent from EWTN…
Holy Season of Lent
…and another by our esteemed host himself that I dug up on Catholic Information Network….
All About Lent
…I think it must be from a few years back since his by line still says James instead of Jimmy.
Hope that helps.