REFLECTIONS TODAY
Fasting is essentially giving up food for a period of time to focus one’s thought on God. In the Old Testament, it was often a way of expressing grief or a means of humbling one’s self before the Lord. In the New Testament, it was a means to grow closer to God through meditating and focusing on him. In the Gospel, Jesus says that his disciples will fast in solidarity with him when he suffers.
Fasting is both prayer and action. Fasting is prayer because it brings us closer to God. Our feeling of hunger reminds us that we depend on God for our bodily sustenance. Fasting is also action because we willingly deprive ourselves to express our sorrow, to show our solidarity with those who suffer, and to have something to offer for our needy brothers and sisters.
The spirit of fasting is not merely on the intensity of hunger or suffering but the intensity of the love that we put in the deprivation we willingly undergo. Suffering is meaningless without the relationship through which our love is channeled. Don’t we see this in our parents who make sacrifices for our welfare? Above all, this is what Jesus showed us in suffering on the cross.
First Reading • Is 58:1-9a
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?”
Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: Releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
Gospel • Mt 9:14-15
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.