Feeling my way into fasting

Fasting is a pillar of Lent whose challenge I’ve long avoided. 

It is mid-January and I’m crossing through a busy, crowded airport. With my duffle bag hanging on my shoulder, I sweep my white cane side to side and walk with a wheelchair attendant who pulls my suitcase. As we cross through the terminals, he tells me about his daily work in the airport and his experience immigrating to the United States from Northern Africa just a couple years ago. Somehow we each quickly admit that we are people of faith: me a Christian, him a Muslim. Together we realize that Ramadan and Lent will closely align this year and we grin and wonder: what impact could it have on the world when billions of people are fasting at once? 

He tells me how intense and meaningful it is to fast while working as an airport attendant, walking miles and smelling food all day, with no food or drink, all while aiming to remain in a spirit of prayer, to remain kind and patient, to remain faithful to the practice because it brings him closer to God. “You Christians… your fasts are easy? You still can drink and eat?” I laugh and agree, saying that, yeah, the faith leaders of my tradition might be OK with keeping things easy for people. Once I arrive at the gate and say my goodbyes, I feel challenged, inspired. 

Later, I’ll decide that although I probably can’t keep a total solidarity Ramandan fast, one of my Lenten intentions will be to fast more seriously this year. I write in my prayer journal: I will consume no food on Fridays until sundown during Lent. I am longing for a way to pray differently for those suffering, for those in detention, in war zones, in fear, in danger. I have failed or found myself foraging for excuses other times I’ve tried to fast from eating. How could this attempt be any different? 

During my years as a catechist and religion teacher I defended the Catholic practice of fasting, the importance of giving something up to become more aware of attachments. I referred young people to Biblical passages about fasting to help them understand the Tradition. The verses imply that fasting is an ordinary element of being faithful, such as worship or charity. 

Yet even now—oracle of the LORD—
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
Joel 2:12

(See also Isaiah 58:1-12; Jonah 3:5-9; Joel 2:13-17; Esther 4:15-16; Matthew 6:16-18)

We’ve inherited fasting as a practice from our faith ancestors, and I deeply value the meaning of the tradition. Saints and sinners have been made holy through fasting; it is a powerful force for good. Saint Francis is said to have practiced five Lents a year, fasting for 40 days each time. He’s the founder of the order I’m part of; this ought to inspire me. Then there are spiritual fasts, fasts as a form of resistance and protest, fasts for justice, fasts for health reasons; each act offers internal or external transformation. Related, hunger strikers like Gandhi have shaped human history. Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman refused food to respond to the call she felt to become part of the Catholic church, and eventually the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (my community).

Yes, I appreciate, value, and admire the tradition, yet I’ve never fully embraced the practice. When I taught high school, I hosted a CRS Food Fasts program for teens, helping them have a lock-in experience in a Catholic school with service-learning intertwined. That was meaningful, but I think I provided a snack room for the adult volunteers. Knowing myself, I likely snuck a bite too. 

Other times, I have started Lent with great intentions of fasting, yet I have forgotten and fallen into mindless eating. I have tried to make fasting too easy for myself: refuse the extra snacks, decline the sweets, yet allow myself a hearty soup or smoothie. I’ve justified my reasons for being lax to myself, to my God. It’s taken me decades to realize I’ve strayed from the opportunity to allow the inner transformation that comes from saying “no” to comfort and endless satiation. 

Perhaps the problem is that it can seem disjointed to try to fast in the land of abundance and waste; food is not scarce here, and I aim to help with waste reduction. Most of the time, I feel the duty to help with eating leftovers and food that could spoil. I am disturbed by the reality that many are hungry, starving to death. How could sparing myself calories make a difference and help solve any problems? 

According to Pope St. John Paul II, “One of the meanings of penitential fasting is to help us recover an interior life. Moderation, recollection, and prayer go hand in hand.” 

Return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, weeping, and mourning. 

So now, a few weeks into Lent, I am feeling my way into fasting. My Friday trials are meager in comparison to my Muslim brothers and sisters fasting through Ramadan. 

Yet, I am motivated differently this round and hope to discover how the practice could deepen my prayer life, connect me to those who are suffering, and bring me into greater communion with God. And, I have felt the effect of less food consumption on my body and my mind, the headaches and fog. There’s been sluggishness and crabbiness. There’s been a draw into quiet, rest, prayer. 

On a recent Friday I prayed the Stations of the Cross right before sundown, a little weak and woozy. It became complex to imagine Jesus’ pain from the cross as my stomach grumbled. For the first time, perhaps, I felt a new type of communion in my body with the power of love that is expressed by choosing suffering for another. Maybe I was finally feeling the grace of why people fast. Maybe the practice was providing the pause I needed to know myself and my God better, providing an opening to graces given, bringing me deeper into the mystery of my faith. Maybe I am feeling my way into the interiority needed to be a peacemaker. 

Maybe I am feeling the ache of love.

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