IT WAS after three weeks of fasting that the prophet Daniel received revelation from God. Abstinence from food lifts the mind to higher things. It prepares the way for wisdom.

Since tomorrow is the beginning of Lent, it’s worth calling to mind the purpose of fasting. The fast teaches self-restraint, not just in regard to food but with all desires and impatience. After fasting, we may mysteriously seem less petulant  and quick to annoyance. It trains the will, enabling it to acquire more endurance and strength. It also serves as reparation for sin, relieving us of nagging migraines of guilt, of which we may be partially unconscious.

And, as Aquinas said, fasting enables the mind to “more freely raise itself to contemplation of the heights.” A gardener trims the limbs of a tree to allow the whole to achieve greater perfection. The fast has effects on the whole person. We are ever one: body and mind.

It is no wonder that people in unprecedented numbers are eating themselves to death. Carbohydrate-overload and pizzafication are not entirely to blame.

We have forgotten the fast. We have abandoned the age-old truth that we can live longer than we think we can without food. But we cannot live well without subtle and penetrating infusions of light from above. Lent richly corresponds to the lengthening days of late winter, the accumulating, awakening light of February and March. It is the spiritual prelude to spring.

Please follow and like us: