Gospel: Luke 4: 33-39
Eating and drinking, fasting and abstaining. These disciplines continue to be the source of endless religious debate to this very day. Some insist on fasting and abstaining, others are more lax about it, almost everyone is hypocritical about it. Abstaining from meat while partaking of the endless shrimp and crab legs feast hardly seems like keeping Friday as a day of penance. And the libertines are hardly feasting with religious intent...
Perhaps this is why Jesus was so indifferent to the whole topic. What matters is not so much what one does but rather with what intention you perform the action. To fast in order to appear holy before others, or to abstain from meat to maintain some "Catholic identity" is not a worthy action. If, however, one fasts and gives that food or the money one would use for food in order to provide sustenance for a hungry person is in fact doing something noble.
So today let our reflection be about these disciplines and the intention we may bring to them as individuals and as communities of faith. Let us fast from all sorts of things and provide for the poor from the time and money we would have spent. Let us feast at the proper times, but with a sense of gratitude, humility, and dependence on God for all things so that the feast may be noble and not savage. May our practices be intentional, conscious, and directed toward mercy and care for others.
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