Fasting Sets Us Free
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Fasting sets us free!
Before I write the Rosary meditations, I spend one hour in meditation in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Today I had the sense we should meditate on the power of fasting. I asked Jesus and Mary and then opened up the first reading from todays Mass from Paul to the Romans who said:
You must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions, you must not let any part of your body turn into an unholy weapon fighting on the side of sin; you should, instead, offer yourselves to God, and consider yourselves dead men brought back to life; you should make every part of your body into a weapon fighting on the side of God; and then sin will no longer dominate your life, since you are living by grace and not by law.
Too often our disordered desires for physical pleasure and comfort control us and we become slaves to our body, addicted to food, alcohol, drugs and sex.
The body is good, but if we make bodily pleasures our goal, they will tyrannize us and destroy our lives.
By fasting we free ourselves from this tyranny. When we fast we tell our body, “You are not my master. I am not your slave. I am free to love and serve God and others!”
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Jesus said, “You cannot be my disciple unless you die to yourself, take up your cross and follow me.
Jesus is talking about mortification. To mortify oneself, die to oneself so that we can do the will of God more completely.
We mortify ourselves out of love for Jesus, to show him we love him and want him even more than we want earthly pleasures.
And because Jesus suffered for us on the Cross, when we fast we show him we will voluntarily follow him and take up our own cross to suffer to be united to him to help him save souls.
Jesus asked St. Faustyna to help him save souls by her mortification. He said to her: You will join prayers, fasts, mortifications, labors and all sufferings to My prayer, fasting, mortifications, labors and sufferings and then they will have power before My Father. (Diary 531)
We may also take up our cross by accepting and offering to Jesus what all that we did not choose, do not like, cannot change and cannot understand. This too can be a voluntary gift if we choose it.
Lord, I don’t like this situation or suffering. I know you do not send evil but if you have allowed this, then it is your will and I choose it and offer it of the love of you and for souls.
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Mortification must begin with the body.
Why not begin with evils of the soul rather than the body? Like pride?
Those are more difficult. Begin where the most basic desires come from because we have bodily desires before we have intellectual ones.
Jesus tells us to fast, to deny ourselves some pleasure of eating or drinking.
Begin small. Fast from your favorite desert or drink. Or eat until you are satisfied and then stop. So often I continue to eat, not because I need more nutrition but because eat tastes so good and then I eat too much. I have also noticed how I eat when I am stressed or right after a stressful situation as a kind of escape. These are great moments to fast and gain control of our body by means of soul.
This is about overcoming the domination of pleasure by our desire to love Jesus.
It is not about bodily health.
So eat and drink in a healthy way for you.
But do something more for the love of Jesus and to help him save souls.
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Other physical mortifications
So much of our sin comes from putting bodily comfort and pleasure first.
When we show the body it is not the boss, we regain mastery over the body and make progress in overcoming all our habitual sins.
That is why the saints tell us – If you want to conquer lust – then fast from food.
If you can’t say no to legitimate pleasures, you wont be able to say no to sinful pleasures.
We can fast from things beyond food. For example, take a colder shower than usual, or a shorter one.
Practice the heroic minute. Get up immediately when the alarm goes off and do it for the love of Jesus and for souls.
Fast from screens for one hour every day.
If Jesus is not real, then this fasting thing is crazy. That is why fasting even increases our faith, hope and love of God.
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The goal of life is intimacy with Jesus.
The problem is that we don’t desire or long for this intimacy with Jesus above all other things.
The saints say that is because we have glutted ourselves with bodily pleasures, we are full to the gills with the pleasures of this world, we are so full we have no hunger for God.
Fasting and mortification are about increasing our desire for God, for union with Jesus.
What is some small practice to deny our earthly desires to increase our desire for Jesus?