MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
FOR LENT 2009
"He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry" (Mt
4,1-2)
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
At
the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual
training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are
very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting
– to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that,
as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away,
restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace
and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium). For this year’s Lenten
Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of
fasting. Indeed, Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the
desert, which He undertook before entering into His public ministry. We read in
the Gospel: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by
the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was
hungry” (Mt 4,1-2). Like Moses, who fasted before receiving the tablets
of the Law (cf. Ex 34,28) and Elijah’s fast before meeting the Lord on
Mount Horeb (cf. 1 Kings 19,8), Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting,
prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a
serious battle with the tempter.
We
might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving
ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily
sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that
fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason,
the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. In the
very first pages of Sacred Scripture, the Lord commands man to abstain from
partaking of the prohibited fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the
garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for
in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn 2, 16-17). Commenting on
the divine injunction, Saint Basil observes that “fasting was ordained in
Paradise,” and “the first commandment in this sense was delivered to Adam.” He
thus concludes: “ ‘You shall not eat’ is a law of fasting and abstinence” (cf.
Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98). Since all of us are weighed down by
sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore
friendship with God. Such was the case with Ezra, who, in preparation for the
journey from exile back to the Promised Land, calls upon the assembled people to
fast so that “we might humble ourselves before our God” (8,21). The Almighty
heard their prayer and assured them of His favor and protection. In the same
way, the people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s call to repentance, proclaimed
a fast, as a sign of their sincerity, saying: “Who knows, God may yet repent and
turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (3,9). In this instance,
too, God saw their works and spared them.
In
the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting,
condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the
prescriptions of the law, but whose hearts were far from God. True fasting, as
the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly
Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18). He Himself
sets the example, answering Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the
desert that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4). The true fast is thus directed to eating
the “true food,” which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4,34). If,
therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil you shall not eat,” the believer, through fasting, intends to
submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy.
The
practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community (cf.
Acts 13,3; 14,22; 27,21; 2 Cor 6,5). The Church Fathers, too, speak
of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,”
and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a
practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every
age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is
the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you
want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close
your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself” (Sermo 43: PL 52,
320. 322).
In
our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and
has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being,
a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits
to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a
“therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In
the Apostolic Constitution
Pænitemini of 1966, the
Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every
Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave
himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent
could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic
Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held
practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open
our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the
new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).
The
faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the
whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the
Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining
them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18),
writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive
me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo
400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body,
nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving
word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest
hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for
God.
At
the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so
many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John
admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet
shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in
him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good
Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf.
Encyclical
Deus caritas est, 15). By freely
embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement
that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep
alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters
that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the
custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God,
prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the
Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor
8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor
what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This
practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially
during the liturgical season of Lent.
From
what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an
important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every
possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the
pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to
control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative
effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of
the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus,
/ somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use
sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in
the custody of our senses.”
Dear
brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to
help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the
complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical
Veritatis splendor, 21). May every
family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order
to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the
soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a
greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of
Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy
Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit
of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae, accompany
and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it
evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every
believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I
cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 11 December 2008.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
