How does your fasting affect the world?

Good News Reflection
Friday after Ash Wednesday
February 19, 2010

Today's Readings:
Isaiah 58:1-9
Ps 51:3-6, 18-19
Matt 9:14-15
http://www.usccb.org/nab/021910.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_02_19.mp3

How does your fasting affect the world?

Today is the first Friday of Lent, a day of fasting and conscious self-purification. If for some reason you are not physically able to fast from food, you can fast from something else, such as television or a bad ha-bit or a favorite activity.

How does your fasting affect the world? What difference does it make? Does it have a good impact or a bad one?

Fasting can make us grouchy! Today's first reading reminds us that fasting is worthless if we're unkind to others and if the focus is only on ourselves: for example, if we're not releasing those bound by injustices, setting free the oppressed, sharing our bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and doing good to our family and friends and fellow parishioners.

Fasting is beneficial only if it helps us put aside our selfish desires so that we hunger only for God. It has no lasting value if we are not being Christ-like to others.

Either we're Christian for the sake of duty and obligation or we're a Christian of devotion. The dutiful Christian obeys God to the letter of the law. He or she goes to Mass to save themselves from hell. This is a business relationship with God. Our part of the contract would be to obey God and his part of the contract would be to accept us into heaven. But that's self-focused. And it ignores that Jesus is the only true Savior and that salvation is a gift, which he freely and generously gives to everyone who truly wants it.

The devotional Christian obeys God because of a loving desire to serve him and also has such a great relationship with God that this love infects others. DOing devotions (the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Stations of the Cross, etc.) doesn't make us devotional. True devotion is an exciting love affair with God in a way that benefits others. True devotion is a love so strong that we cannot look at a person who's suffering without wanting to help. It's a love so strong that even when others hurt us, we hurt for them because they have turned away from God, and if we can, we do something that gives them a dose of God's love.

To have this kind of devotion, we have to first know — really know — that God is devoted to us. To the extent that we fail to understand how wonderfully God loves us, that's how much we fail to love God, and to the extent that we fail to love God, that's how much we fail to love others.

The more we really believe in our hearts that we are lovable and loved by God, the easier it is to love others. This is the spirit of devotion. Everything else we do as a Christian is only duty.

© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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