Fasting frees us from attachment

I watch the hawk circle, swoop and soar. Once again I am in awe, loving the way power and grace are outlined against a blue sky. Now Lent has arrived and I am also reminded of what Augustine said in one of his homilies: "Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God? Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving."

On Ash Wednesday every year we hear the familiar words from Matthew's Gospel where Jesus, in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, presents prayer, fasting and almsgiving as three pillars of Christian spirituality. All three are treated equally--the same number of verses, similar language, parallel phrasing. But we Catholics seem to be able to stuff enough cotton in our ears so that we usually hear prayer, and perhaps almsgiving, but not fasting.

Fasting is suspect in our modern world, sometimes with good reason. It is certainly countercultural; it seems filled with obscure rules; it imposes limits and is thought to emphasize the negative, not the positive; it can even be dangerous. But the practice has been part of every religious tradition, and the core of the discipline, as it is found in other traditions as well as our own, offers much wisdom for us to ponder.

Paulist Fr. Thomas Ryan has written: "In the religious experience of humankind, fasting has always been a prelude and a means to a deeper spiritual life." Moses fasted before receiving the Ten Commandments. Jesus fasted 40 days in the desert before beginning his public ministry. Mohammad fasted throughout his life.

In our own times, a great many people still fast. Observant Jews do not eat or drink from sundown to sundown on Yom Kippur, the culmination of the high holy days. "We are in essence praying for our lives that day," says one rabbi, "and so the last thing we worry about is food." For Muslims, wherever they live, fasting during Ramadan binds them together in one of the most basic duties of their faith. The rules are strict: Nothing may pass their lips during the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan. But bracketing each day's fast are two meals, both encouraged by Mohammad. Fasting and feasting, joy and thanksgiving--all are part of the Ramadan fast.

Among contemporary Christians, attitudes toward fasting differ widely. Roman Catholics are perhaps the most confused. In the United States today Catholic regulations include only two obligatory days of fasting--Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence. To many of us, the distinctions between fasting (only one full meal a day) and abstinence (no meat) seem outdated, legalistic and irrelevant. What does it matter not to eat meat on Friday if you usually prefer fish or you're a vegetarian or trying to cut down on cholesterol? What does it mean to fast when your workday routinely allows you time for only one full meal a day?

The Catholic tradition, woven in a 2,000-Year history stretching from the words and actions of Jesus through the rich heritage of monks and mystics to the conflicting teachings of Thomas Aquinas and Pope Paul VI, presents us with a challenge: Is fasting now fatally irrelevant? Or are there ways to reclaim our Gospel legacy and give an ancient practice some contemporary significance?

One way to begin is to move away from the negative focus on sin and guilt and the idea of punishing the body that still haunts many Catholics. Liturgy scholar Robert Taft has written, "Penance does not turn people into Christians." Fasting is not dieting. It is not self-destructive asceticism. And it must never threaten our health.

Our task is to view fasting as a positive act, to see how it gives us time and space to deepen our relationships to God, to others, to nature itself. "Fasting," writer David Trembley says, "is an invitation to still the noise and listen to the silence." The purpose of a contemporary practice of fasting is to set us free from attachments that weigh us down. It is just one part of a holistic spirituality.

We can also reenergize our fasting by importing wisdom from other traditions. Some Catholics have fasted Ramadan-style during Lent and found the daily rhythm spiritually nourishing. Over the years I have followed the traditional Catholic fasting and found it lacking; I have also fasted during Lent the way the Jews fast for Yom Kippur and found it enriching.

We need not focus only on fasting from food or drink. Our lives and our culture present many alternatives. We can fast from a variety of soul-numbing habits that interfere with our goal of a profound spiritual life. I know Catholics who have observed their Lenten fast by refraining from television and e-mail or gossip or shopping.

In teachings like the passage from Matthew's Gospel and Augustine's homily, in the core of the Christian tradition, which I believe we must reclaim, we see why fasting cannot be ignored. It is an essential part of an integrated spiritual life. A hawk cannot soar with only one wing.