Lent 1
“After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” (Matt. 4:2)
Today’s homily is entitled “Christ an example in fasting” and it comes from St Thomas Acquinas. It is in a little book I have of his sermons for the church year, rather than the text of a full sermon on today’s gospel reading, there is an outline of the main points he wanted to make. There are sixteen points in all. They are rather points which could extend into longer meditations. I hope you won’t mind but I am going to shamelessly plagiarise this outline today.
Thomas begins by looking to St Augustine for inspiration, and Augustine says that it is the highest religion to imitate what we worship. Thus when scripture tells us that Jesus Christ fasted, so ought we to fast.
The first reason he gives for fasting is that the Lord commanded us to fast. That fasting has a fourfold character –
(1) In the garden, Adam and Eve were told that they should not eat of the tree of knowledge, in other words that they should fast with regards that tree. This is nowadays seen as a prohibition against eating of that particular fruit, but I think Thomas is right, that it was a specific fast, from that particular fruit, not just the vague abstention that people associate with lent nowadays.
(2) The commandment of keeping the Sabbath day holy is another type of fast, that we do not do the everyday sort of things, the ironing, the washing, things which can be done during the week. In the Torah, these prohibitions became very difficult, and the laws of do and don’t became very complex for the ordinary Jew. Even today there are many ways of keeping the law, as the many flavours of Judaism testifies.
(3) Thomas cites Joel 2:15 which says, “Sanctify a fast.” Need we say any more than that? It is directly said in one of the prophets. Now how can we not do so? Throughout Joel there is a call to awareness of the very difficult times in which we dwell. Particularly Joel speaks of the armies at the gates, that judgement is at hand, the day of the Lord is here and now, a day on which we must take our stand – for or against God.
(4) Even Paul recommends fasting as a way of showing that one lives in grace, in the favour of God. Paul argues that only positive transgressors of the Law of God are unwilling to fast.
The second reason we have for fasting is that Jesus teaches us that there are four things necessary in fasting. Specifically —
That we should be cleansed from our sins, this surrounds our understanding of baptism, doesn’t it?
That we should conceal our trials from our contemporaries. Doesn’t he command us not to be like the hypocrites who go round in sackcloth and ashes but do not truly forsake the depravity of the world?
Then that we should endure just as Jesus did, for certainly Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the wild places.
And that we should not give in to temptation. In the desert Jesus overcame the temptations for power, wealth and glory which the story tells us were brought about by the devil.
So it is with the christian, fasting should bring about a cleansing of the spirit. When cleansed, how can we walk about in sackcloth and ashes? Naturally our fast will be concealed, but nonetheless very real because we will be striving to let go of the things we know and love too much. The fast we undertake reveals to us just how insidiously the devil participates in each and every aspect of our lives.
The third reason we are to fast is that evil befalls those who are unwilling to fast when they ought to do so. When that required fasting is, is not determined in the particular, but it is the general principle that exercises St Thomas with regard to fasting.
Fasting keeps us away from a very present evil. In one case he speaks about the evil of iniquity, for which he cites Sodom as an example, the pride of that city caused great iniquity with those round about. There is another evil, that of loss. He argues that those who are not able to fast now will never benefit from the plenteousness of virtue when we find ourselves on that dreadful day of the awe-full Lord. Much as when Adam and Eve lost the Garden, so will we be when the time comes to re-enter those groves which heard the Lord moving about. That evil of loss will be heightened by the fact that those who have not been able to abstain will be tormented by that lack of will-power; those without the power of fasting do not know how to enjoy pleasure in moderation, but will have to engorge themselves and never know joy. That joy will be withheld and they will know only torment, a torment of lacking everything with which they had overindulged themselves. Jesus’ story about the rich man who did not give to the poor speak to us about all of these evils, that he did not share with the poor man on his doorstep led to his not having any comfort at the judgement, not even a drop of water in the unspeakable heat when he sees that poor man transformed and at the feast of the King of Kings.
Thus from fasting Thomas Acquinas teaches us that there are four benefits – that we will be able to overcome vices in our own lives, that we will be able to focus our attention of heavenly things and not mere creature comforts, that we will acquire virtue and finally we will obtain the reward of eternal blessedness.
So ends Thomas Acquinas’ homily on fasting. We should all be endeavouring to benefit this lent by fasting, in order that we will overcome any evil in our lives through gaining a clearer insight into matters of faith. That vision will help us to know what is good in our lives and help us realise that our heavenly reward can be experienced, however dimly, in our lives today.
Everything in this homily of St Thomas refers to everything else, it is not just one straight road from fasting because it is commanded to the heavenly blessedness. The track may go this way and that and be rather difficult all the way through. But we should be able to progress through the course of life, improving at every step, transforming ourselves from the selfish and self-indulgent to the self-sacrificing and generous souls who follow the way of life of self-control. So Thomas promises us when we imitate Christ as an example in fasting. Thus we hope in Christ.