Fasting

Food and I have a one-sided relationship: I can't survive without it and it really couldn't care less about me. If I could, I would live without food. Don't get me wrong. I do not have body image issues nor am I extra sensitive to food. It's just that, I really don't enjoy it all that much. I have my favorites, of course, but for the most part, I generally think of eating as a chore that I have to get over in order to get through the day. Growing up, I used to think that the space-age cartoon the Jetsons had it made when they simply had to pop a pill for a meal.

Which is probably why I'd convinced myself that fasting during Lent wasn't that big of a deal. While I was growing up, I was taught that there were more important things than fasting (officially eating only one full meal a day on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) such as almsgiving or doing good deeds or abstaining from sinful habits like gossiping or backbiting. That sounded pretty good to me so that's what I did. And yet, as I've grown in my faith and learned more about it, I found that there is also a wisdom to fasting that cannot be substituted by anything else. So a couple of years ago, I decided to try it out.

I didn't even do the one-full-meal-a-day-thing. (I still don't. I'll have to level up one of these years.) I just decreased each of my three meals by about half my usual portion and cut my morning and afternoon snacks on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and because I was feeling particularly challenged, every Friday of Lent. I thought it would be easy since I didn't really care about food all that much anyway.

Ah, pride goeth before a fall. I learned the hard way, that not liking food is not the same as suffering hunger. When I wasn't fasting and I didn't like the food I had been served I would make up for it by getting dessert or eating a sandwhich for snacks. But when I was fasting, I found myself literally physically longing to take one more bite of food that I normally would not have paid attention to. And it was no longer a matter or taste. It became a matter of will.

And boy, does my will get tested! Why is it that the best dishes always seem to come out on days when I decide to fast as though the world is mocking me? Why is it that I am invited to parties and gimmicks on Friday nights when it is so much harder to say no? I must admit that during Lent, I dread Fridays even if they are the start of the weekend. And the farther in I am in Lent, that Good Friday stops looking so good from where I'm standing.

But I continue to struggle. Not because I am masochistic and like to wallow in self-inflicted piety but because I have seen the merits of fasting. First, fasting reminds me to school my will. When I abstain on other things like buying a new outfit or eating dessert, I am not keeping myself from things I really need. But when I fast on food, I am reminded that my will is stronger than my primal needs, that I can, with the grace of God, control even desires that have no moral implications.

Second, fasting allows me, even for a short while, to empathize with the hungry. It is easy enough to turn a blind eye on a beggar when I can intellectualize away the pain of hunger, but it is not quite so easy when I physically remember what it is like to have the gnawing sensation in my stomach.

Third, fasting teaches me to rely on God not just for my spiritual needs but for my physical needs, as well. When I fast, I entrust myself to the grace of God, that He will take care of my fears of a hyperacidity attack or a hunger migraine (which by Saturday morning usually begins to sound irrational).

Fourth, fasting allows me to practice my belief of redemptive suffering. Penance and sacrifice are not tickets to popularity these days. People would much rather focus on the feel-good effects of spirituality instead of the reality of sin and conversion. Why should we dwell on suffering? After all, aren't we an Easter people? That much is true. But I have come to realize that to be a people of Easter does not negate that we are also a people of Good Friday. In as much as the Passion on Good Friday only makes sense when there's an Easter Sunday, the glory of Resurrection Sunday is also made meaningful by what has been overcome on Good Friday.

When I fast, I am very aware that it is temporary. I count down the hours (and actually go to bed earlier) to await the relief the next day when I eat breakfast and it's literally a breaking of the fast. I wish I could tell people that I have a smile on my face the whole day and that I sing the Lord's praises at every moment! That I have found the secret to doing it and will be doing it on every Friday of the year. Ha! Living saint I am not. On Ash Wednesday, I had already begun my countdown to Easter Sunday. I am taking it one Friday at a time. One meal at a time. And just because I fasted on Friday last week doesn't guarantee that I'll be fasting this week. What keeps me going is my prayer to have faith that my suffering will end.To have faith that my suffering has meaning.To have faith that the fast and the feast both have a place in my life.