FASTING WITH GUSTO

Ember Friday in Lent

Some people aren’t happy unless things are complicated. Rationalized. Over-explained. (Some of you are looking at the sidebar to see who’s really writing this, 'cause that sounds like a perfect description of Wilcox—but read on.)

Dull rationalism is a symptom of our time. I’m inclined to call it “rationalism, so-called,” because it’s more appearance than reality. We do not live in rational times, and it's apparent in almost every aspect of our lives. Not too long ago, a California mother and father sued the Glendale Independent School District because their son was judged “functionally illiterate” after he graduated from high school (I followed the trial in the newspaper). They proved their case in court, but lost anyway. The Judge ruled that the School district’s job wasn’t to “educate” its “clients” but “socialize” them. I wrote a letter to the Glendale News Press on reading the court’s decision suggesting, if that was the case, every parent in Glendale ought to file suit.

In religion, this tendency shows itself in a desire to “de-mythologize” faith. One of the most wonderful of human actions, the stately celebration of the Mass, with its antique language, ancient chants, and incense-hidden rituals, had to be “modernized.” It needed to be made “relevant.” The elevated language of the Book of Common Prayer and the mysterious syllables of the medieval Latin Mass had to go—people needed to “understand.” Modern, rationalized worship, with its street-language liturgy and fast-food ritual, is dull, forgettable and—worst of all—uninspiring. As my friend and old curate Father Davis used to say, “Jesus is Present in the modern Mass, but He’s there as reluctantly as everybody else.”

In the spiritual life, this has led to therapy-room confessionals, best-selling books of cheap spiritual-sounding platitudes, and a loss of the Mystery of Faith (when I was in the hospital a few years back, a well-meaning woman, a "Eucharistic Minister" of her parish, breezed into my room and asked if I wanted Communion. Before I could demur, she plopped her purse on my bed and proceeded to rummage through it. "I know I've got It in here somewhere," she muttered.) We've lost the ability to distinguish between sentimentality and profundity. The great and hidden struggles of the soul are “explained” in pedestrian terms to recast their meaning. We don’t fast because we’re sorry for sin, but because it “unites us with the struggles of the poor.” We don’t give alms to fight our love of money but to enable us to “find solidarity with the oppressed.” We pray, not to lift our hearts and minds to God, but to allow us to “connect with the wider truths in the Universe.” All those phrases I just quoted are from a modern pamphlet “explaining” the meaning and importance of Lent.

No wonder churches are emptying.

We don’t fast as a religious colonic. We fast because we like to eat, and eating less makes us hungry. Being hungry reminds me there are things more important than eating, and that being sorry for my sins is one of them. I don’t eat. I get hungry. I’m sorry I’m hungry. I tell that to God, and offer Him my fasting. It’s not complex.

We don’t abstain from certain things for Lent because we’re better off without them, as true as that may be. A lot of people don’t eat meat. I do. I like it; in fact, I love it. That’s the problem. I don’t eat meat during Lent because I think it’s bad but so I can tell God that I love Him more than a 16-ounce, thick-cut, marbled chunk o’ rib eye (how much more is a question I have to face every Lent).

Over the coming weeks, I’ll talk more fasting (and I will touch on some of the points a few of you have raised with me about it). But for now, while it’s still early, all you need to do is eat a little less, and when you get used to it, eat a little less than that. Fast with gusto. Don’t let Old Nick turn your stomach’s growl into a whine of the soul.

Here’s the fun part: when we fast without making it unpleasant on everybody around us, when we fast with joy (and we can!), Lent doesn’t become more understandable, but more mysterious. The inner eyes of our souls, which we’re not used to using, open for a few seconds every now and then and we catch a glimpse into the world of the Spirit. Fasting with our bellies opens the eyes of our souls.