FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH:
Matthew 9, 14-15:
“Can wedding guests mourn while the groom is with them?”
Jesus does not want a merely ritualistic fast. He doesn’t want the sad fast or the fast for the sake of fasting. He doesn’t want a fast that can even fatten our religious ego.
The fast that Jesus wants is the fast that benefits others and brings me closer to the Father.
It can be very good to deprive ourselves of food. But that deprivation must be in order to be more in solidarity with our brothers and sisters and to come closer to them.
It is more difficult, but also more effective, to fast from attitudes and situations that block us or make it impossible for us to relate with others and to relate with God: envy, intolerance, selfish hoarding, misunderstandings, resentments and so many other things that distance us from our brothers and sisters and from the Father.
May the food denial you practice during this Lent be the sign and the reminder that you are also fasting from other things.
Good day.
Antonio María Sanjuán Marín, cmf
