I have kept journals most of my adult life. I write
about things that I want to remember. I record facts that I might need
someday, or advice and insights that have made a difference. I write
things down so as not to lose them.
...This article is about fasting. At the beginning of
Lent, the Church exhorts us to pray, fast, and give alms. These
disciplines counter the three-fold concupiscence that St. John the Evangelist
describes as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life" (1 John 2:16).
However, while fasting aims to correct a disordered desire
for pleasure (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2351), it would be wrong to
consider it merely negatively. If fasting necessarily deprives us of
something, it presupposes that we have received a grace, that we have
encountered Christ! In this way, fasting is the means by which we keep
the grace of the encounter by renouncing the desire to reproduce the encounter
by our own initiative.
C.S. Lewis helps us to understand this point. In his
book, Perelandra, the protagonist, Dr. Elwin Ransom, finds himself transported
to an unfallen world where his concupiscence is "suspended" for a
time. Tasting an indescribably delicious fruit, Lewis relates:
"As Ransom let the empty gourd fall from his hand and
was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither
hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so
spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. Yet something seemed opposed to
this 'reason'....It appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps
the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a
vulgarity."
In this piercingly insightful passage, Lewis tells us that
Ransom's reason for refraining was not that the fruit was evil or that his
enjoyment of it was disordered. Rather, the decision was an act of
reverence. Somehow, Ransom's original experience forbade repetition
because, in the first act, he had already received everything.
What about us? A genuine encounter with Christ always
fills us to overflowing and leaves us wanting more. But
"the more" does not come to us by our own power or on our own terms.
"The more" is a gift. We can only wait for it. That
is why we fast. Blessed Lent.
- Mother M. Maximilia, FSGM
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