I have just started to get my kitchen ready for Lent. I put all the things that for seven weeks will soon be completely excluded from my diet, things like honey, wine, soj sauce and sweets for example, in a box and put them away, out of the kitchen. And I made a list writing down my fasting plan: one simple and satisfying meal a day consisting of ordinary vegetables and corn, of ingredients like carots, potatoes, beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, paprika, brokkoli, tomatoes, rice, and at times maybe eggs and red meat or chicken; drinking mostly herbal tea and water, black coffee in the morning; and abstaining from alcohol, sugar, all sweets and cakes, raisins and all sweet fruits, extravagant spices and flavor additives, all milk products and honey, all juices and smoothies.
Living a season of fasting is impossible without clear resolutions and wise preparations. The art of limiting oneself to one simple dish a day requires the precise definition of the limits and boundaries to which we are willing to submit ourselves during Lent. Our resolution for fasting should be as strong and our plan defining the boundaries of our diet as simple, strict and clear as the one of Daniel and his friends in the Babylonian exile. Because fasting half way never works well. We can only come to a point of grateful delight in our one and only daily meal, if it really is indeed very simple and bereft of many of our usual pleasures in food.
“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not be defiled with the king’s table, nor with the wine which he drank: and he requested the master of the eunuchs that he might not be defiled.“
Daniel 1: 8
“And Daniel said to Malasar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had appointed over Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias: Try, I beseech thee, thy servants for ten days, and let pulse (that is: pease, beans, and such like) be given us to eat, and water to drink: And look upon our faces, and the faces of the children that eat of the king’s meat: and as thou shalt see, deal with thy servants. And when he had heard these words, he tried them for ten days. And after ten days their faces appeared fairer and fatter than all the children that ate of the king’s meat.“
Daniel 1: 11-15
But lest we forget: Fasting as a practice on our journey to Pesach is not to be confused with just another healthy diet plan to look better, though it might accidently lead to that, just like Daniel and his friends prospered when they did not defile themselves with the king‘s non-kosher choice food.
Yet the main purpose of fasting is not the improvement of our health, but sitting in “sackcloth and ashes“. It is supposed to humble us in a season of penance. It is meant to increase our awareness of our dependence on God‘s grace and mercy in all things and to bring us to a point of depending on Him more than on anything else, as well as to live into suffering with Christ, into an increased intimacy with Him in partaking in His Passion.
“Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil.“
Joel 2: 12-13
Fasting is supposed to be an outward help in rendering our hearts and not our garments, in turning back to God and coming closer to Him. As Saint Francis de Sales tells us, “Charity alone places us in perfection…“
“But the three great means of attaining to it are obedience, chastity, and poverty. Obedience consecrates our heart, chastity our body, and poverty our worldly means to the love and service of God. These are the three branches of the spiritual cross, and all have their foundation in the fourth, which is humility… Let us try, then, to practice these virtues, each according to his vocation (…).“
Saint Francis de Sales, Philothea or An Introduction to the Devout Life, TAN Classics, p. 154
Teach us then, Saint Francis de Sales, what it means to practice these virtues: obedience, chastity, poverty, so that charity may be strengthened in us…
Obedience
“We must obey all superiors in those things in which they are especially set over us, obeying our temporal rulers in all political and public matters, our spiritual rulers in all things ecclesiastical, our father, husband, or master in domestic concerns, and our confessor in all appertaining to the guidance of our soul. (…) Happy are those who are obedient, for God will not suffer them to go astray.“
Saint Francis de Sales, Philothea or An Introduction to the Devout Life, TAN Classics, p. 155-156
Chastity
“Chastity is the lily of the virtues. It renders men almost equal to the angels. Nought is beautiful save through purity, and the purity of men is chastity. We call chastity integrity, and its opposite corruption. (…) Chastity has its origin in the heart, but its substance is in the body; wherefore it is lost by means of the external senses of the body, and by the thoughts and desires of the heart. It is impurity to behold, to hear, to speak of, to breathe, to touch impure things, if the heart takes delight therein. (…) associate with chaste and virtuous persons; read and often think on sacred things, for the Word of God is chaste, and renders those who take delight therein chaste also (…) Abide ever nigh to Jesus Christ crucified, spiritually in meditation, and actually in the Holy Communion. For as whatever lies upon the herb called Agnus castus becomes chaste and pure, so if you rest your heart upon Our Lord, who is the true chaste and Immaculate Lamb, you will speedily find that your heart and soul will be purified from all stains and lusts.“
Saint Francis de Sales, Philothea or An Introduction to the Devout Life, TAN Classics, p. 157-162
Poverty
“He is poor in spirit who has not riches in his heart, nor his heart in riches. (…) There is a difference between possessing poison and being poisoned. Apothecaries keep poisons for various uses, but they are not poisoned, because the poison is but in their shops, not in themselves; and so you may possess riches without being poisoned by them, that is, if you have them in your house or in your purse and not in your heart, being rich in substance, but poor in spirit. (…) Always dispose of a part of your means by giving freely alms to the poor, for you impoverish yourself by that which you give, and the more it is the more you are impoverished. (…) Oh, the holiness and richness of making oneself poor by almsgiving! Love poverty and the poor (…).
Saint Francis de Sales, Philothea or An Introduction to the Devout Life, TAN Classics, p. 163-168
If you love the poor, go frequently among them, take pleasure in bringing them around you, and in visiting and in conversing willingly with them; and mingle with them in the church, the street, and elsewhere. (…) Would you still go further? (…) do you become the servant of the poor; go and tend their sickbeds with your own hands, feed them, serve them, minister to them. Such service is more noble than royalty!“
Saint Francis de Sales, pray for us!