Transcript

To many, fasting seems like a mere obligation, just something we have to do during Lent, a kind of endurance test before we can return to normal eating.

But in reality, fasting is one of the most essential means that God has given us to grow in holiness.

The Church has never commanded fasting arbitrarily; the saints and doctors of the Church have always emphasized its role in forming us as saints.

St. Thomas Aquinas, following the tradition before him, tells us that fasting has three essential ends: to discipline the flesh, to free the soul for contemplation, and to make satisfaction for sin.

But these aren't just abstract theological ideas; they are deeply connected to the battle every Christian is obliged to fight on a daily basis: the battle between the flesh and the spirit, between concupiscence and grace, between attachment to this world and the longing for union with God.

We see this struggle everywhere in Scripture.

St. Paul tells us that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

Our Lord Himself fasted in the desert for 40 days before His public ministry, demonstrating that fasting is not optional; it is an essential means of sanctification in the spiritual life.

Yet the idea and purpose of self-denial seems very foreign to us.

Why should we deprive ourselves?

What's the purpose?

Isn't Christianity about joy?

Of course, but true joy comes through the spirit ruling the flesh, not in being content with the mere pleasures of animals.

We were not made for food or drink, but for God Himself.

That's why fasting is not an end in itself, but a means to a greater goal: strengthening the soul, weakening the flesh, and therefore ordering ourselves entirely to God.

So why has the Church always insisted on fasting?

What does it really accomplish?

And how do the three ends St. Thomas outlines help us understand its place in the Christian life?

Let's take a closer look.

As I mentioned earlier, since the time of St. Thomas, there have been three ends set to fastings in particular.

First, we fast in order to destroy the concupiscence of the flesh.

Second, we fast in order to free us for contemplation.

Third, we fast in order to satisfy for the debts due to our sins.

He states in the Summa, First, in order to bridle the concupiscences of the flesh; wherefore the Apostle says, 'In fasting, in chastity,' since fasting is the guardian of chastity; for according to Jerome, lust is cooled by abstinence in meat and drink.

Second, we have recourse to fasting in order that the mind may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things.

Hence it is related of Daniel that he received a revelation from God after fasting for three weeks.

He sets forth these three ends in his Summa Theologiae.

Yet his Summa is a special book; in many cases, the reasons and explanations given in a certain article of the Summa are meant to point back to earlier articles.

So unless you already know what he had written about earlier, you are not going to be able to fully appreciate what he writes later.

So we can go through each one of these one by one and see how they relate to what he says earlier in the Summa and in other expositions of the same doctrine.

In order to understand these ends in particular, we need to understand why we even discuss the ends of fasting in general.

Fasting is not something which is an end in itself; rather, fasting can be good or evil insofar as it is ordered to some good or evil end.

In the spiritual life, the love of God is the end; fasting and vigils and other bodily exercises are not sought as the end because, as it is said in Romans 14:17, the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but they are applied as necessary unto the end.

So when we fast, we are fasting not simply to fast, but to do something.

It is very easy for us to fast for the wrong reasons.

This is actually a frequent theme throughout Sacred Scripture.

Thus we see God chastise Israel in Isaiah 58, saying, So what are these proper ends?

First, as mentioned above, we have the end of restraining concupiscence.

Concupiscence is what we often read about in Scripture when we see the term the flesh.

Thus St. James writes: So we see a three-step process outlined by St. James: first, we have the motion of concupiscence; second, we have the act of sin; third, we have eternal death as a punishment of that sin.

So some of the first steps in the spiritual life are ascetical acts.

These ascetical acts are meant to restrain these motions of concupiscence.

This happens when, in the words of St. Paul, the spirit lusts against the flesh, as he writes to the Galatians: For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another, so that you do not do the things that you would.

In fasting and penance, the spirit denies the flesh in those lawful things in order to weaken concupiscence so that it does not, as St. James outlined, beget sin and therefore beget death.

As St. Alphonsus teaches us, If you deny your body lawful pleasures, it is not apt to seek unlawful ones; but if you indulge in all the lawful enjoyments, you will soon cross the line into forbidden territory.

In fact, this statement is a summary of the driving force behind Pope St. Gregory the Great's Moralia on Job.

When we are able to rule the flesh and walk after the spirit, even in those things that are lawful, when motions of unlawful concupiscence arise, the flesh is already used to obeying the spirit, and the spirit is already apt to rule the flesh, so the unlawful desire will already be easily ruled.

Of course, we know that this war will not be won until after death, for God continues to permit the afflictions of this concupiscence as we are upon earth.

So we must always remain vigilant and always fight against what the theologians have called the tinder of sin.

Thus St. Paul writes: I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Yet God has condemned sin in His flesh by the passion of our Lord, meriting for us the grace whereby we do not walk after our flesh and its concupiscences, but walk after the spirit in war against the flesh.

Thus St. Paul goes on to say: Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Yet why does God permit this battle to continue?

Why does He not free us from the flesh once we have been given that grace which is the principle of the ascetical life and the seed of eternal glory?

St. Augustine tells us that this concupiscence has been permitted in us for a number of different reasons, some less important and others more important.

The first reason is so that we may be as glorious victors, gaining the crown of victory over such worthy opponents.

St. Augustine draws forth this principle from St. Hilary of Poitiers: For through the infirmity of our flesh, the devil hurls all the weapons of his power when he stirs us to lust, entices us to drunkenness, urges us to hatred, provokes us to avarice, excites us to murder, goads us to curses.

If there is no war, there will be no victory.

The second reason is for the greater glory of God, so that His grace may be glorified in our weakness; that is, insofar as we come to know our total dependence on God's grace for our redemption from sin, insofar as we constantly must petition Him day after day to forgive us our trespasses—trespasses that humble human weakness—and must petition Him day after day to lead us not into temptation, a petition that asks for our only remedy, that is, sanctifying grace.

Thus St. Augustine says: You yourselves have acknowledged that the saints engage in glorious combats against such stimulations, which must first be combated lest they dominate, then healed that they may be entirely exterminated.

When we fight, we at once recognize the words of the fighters.

In this way, it is not we who live, but Christ lives in us.

If for waging war against concupiscences and for complete victory over our enemies we trust in Him and not in ourselves, for He has become for us God-given wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Let him who takes pride take pride in the Lord.'

This is able to cure and heal us of our pride.

Thus he writes: Since in our present state of misery, pride is a worse enemy calling for continual care, we venture to say that perhaps concupiscence is not wholly extinguished in the flesh of holy celibates in order that while the soul is fighting against concupiscence, it may be mindful of its dangers and thus escape a false security.

This must continue until it attains that perfection of sanctity where it is no longer disturbed by the thought or the swelling of pride, for strength is made perfect in weakness, and fighting is of weakness.

The more easily one conquers, the less one needs combat.

But who would fight within himself if there were no opposition from self?

And why is there opposition from self if nothing remains in us to be healed and cured?

Therefore, the sole cause of our fighting is weakness in ourselves.

Again, weakness cautions against pride.

Truly, that strength and virtue by which a man is not proud in this life, where he could be proud, is made perfect in weakness.

Lastly, in another place, St. Augustine writes: Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its pilgrim state, for it cries to God by the mouth of all its members: 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'

For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet pressed down by the corruptible body so long as it is in this mortal condition, it is not perfect authority over vice, and therefore this prayer is needed by the righteous; for though it exercises authority, the vices do not submit without a struggle.

For however well one maintains the conflict and however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals in some evil thing which, if it does not find ready expression and act, slips out by the lips or insinuates itself into the thought, and therefore his peace is not full so long as he is at war with his vices.

For it is a doubtful conflict he wages with those that resist, and his victory over those that are defeated is not secure, but full of anxiety and effort amid these temptations.

Therefore, of all which it has been summarily said in the divine oracles: 'Is not human life upon earth a temptation?

Who but a proud man can presume that he so lives that he has not need to say to God, Forgive us our debts?'

And such a man is not great, but swollen and puffed up with vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who abundantly gives grace to the humble.

Whence it is said, 'God resisteth the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'

In this then consists the righteousness of a man: that he submits himself to God, his body to his soul, and his vices, even when they rebel, to his reason, which either defeats or at least resists them; and also that he begs from God grace to do his duty and the pardon of his sins, and that he render to God thanks for all the blessings he receives.

Here we see something interesting: there is a threefold order.

It is not simply the order of the spirit and the flesh, the spirit ruling the flesh, but there is also the order of the spirit to God.

So the flesh submits to the spirit, and the spirit submits to God.

When a man is indulgent and senses pleasures, he begins to order himself to created things.

This order to created things is called an attachment.

So it is beneficial for us insofar as we are able not only to chastise the flesh by fastings in order to completely submit it to the spirit, but also to do so so that the spirit is freed from such indulgences, from such attachments, in order to better contemplate God, which is the second reason outlined by St. Thomas.

Thus in Scripture, we see that St. Paul invokes this principle in relation to the marital debt in 1 Corinthians 7, where he encourages couples to periodically abstain from sexual relations in order to better pray.

This is why traditionally couples were exhorted by the Roman Catechism and asked for the nuptial Mass to abstain before the reception of Holy Communion, to be better disposed for the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith.

Thus the Roman Catechism states: The faithful are also to be taught sometimes to abstain from the marriage debt in order to devote themselves to prayer.

Let the faithful understand that this religious continence, according to the proper and holy injunction of our predecessors, is particularly to be observed for at least three days before communion and oftener during the solemn fast of Lent.

This principle of the detachment from sense goods bringing us to the contemplation of God is most illustriously expounded by the mystical doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross.

He writes extensively on this point in Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book 1, which might be beneficial for those of you who wish to study more on this topic.

He writes: It has no capacity for being enlightened and possessed by the pure and simple light of God if it first casts them not from it; for light cannot agree with darkness.

The reason is that two contraries, even as philosophy teaches us, cannot coexist in one person, and that darkness, which is affection set upon the creatures, and light, which is God, are contrary to each other and have no likeness or accord between one another.

Hence it is that the light of divine union cannot dwell in the soul if these affections first flee not away from it.

It is for this reason that we understand that the counsels of perfection—that is, the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience—are safer and more sure ways to the perfection of love.

Thus St. Thomas summarizes the above doctrine by saying: It is abundantly clear that the human heart is more intensely attracted to one object in proportion as it is withdrawn from a multiplicity of desires.

Therefore, the more a man is delivered from a solicitude concerning temporal matters, the more perfectly he will be enabled to love God.

These renunciations, which are states of life in the religious, can be practiced in accordance with one's state in life by way of various penitential acts.

Lastly, we engage in fasting in order to satisfy for temporal debts.

When we sin, one of the effects of sin is the obligation of punishment.

Our sins are transgressions against the order of justice, and the virtuous man will willingly and voluntarily accept these punishments in order to restore what has been lost by his own acts.

Contrary to popular belief, this is actually his chief purpose of purgatory.

Purgatory is something that is penal and inflicts those punishments that are voluntarily and lovingly accepted by the just man.

Throughout our life, we can satisfy for the many ways we have violated this order of justice by uniting ourselves to the sufferings of Christ and voluntarily accepting suffering.

Fasting is not just a rule to follow; it's a means by which we discipline the flesh, elevate the soul, and order ourselves more perfectly to God.

As St. Paul reminds us, I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.

The Church gives us fasting not as an end in itself, but as a tool to walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh.

If you want some helpful reading connected with this topic, please consider picking up the book A Brief Guide to Mental Prayer According to the Mind of St. Ignatius.

St. Ignatius is the master of the spiritual life for laymen, and this book is incredibly helpful in systematically presenting his views on the matter.

Pick up a copy with the link below.

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Thanks for watching, and as always, God bless.