Does Famine Feed Faith?
What possible good did it do the world for Christ to go without food for forty days? Why should we follow such an example? As a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate, peevish and unpleasant. A good dinner puts a man at peace with all the world—makes him generous, good natured and happy. He feels like kissing his wife and children. The future looks bright. He wants to help the needy. The good in him predominates, and he wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. Your good cook is a civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual progress is simply impossible. Most of the orthodox creeds were born of bad cooking. Bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia produced Calvinism, and Calvinism is the cancer of Christianity. Oatmeal is responsible for the worst features of Scotch Presbyterianism. Half cooked beans account for the religion of the Puritans. Fried bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie the doctrine of State Rights. Lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and bad cooking is a crime.
By Robert Ingersoll Via
Christians: Stuffed but happy.
Although I think it is not being famished that is quite the point of the faith: but learning to see our desires really are.
Comments
Fasting is a rarely touched
Fasting is a rarely touched topic these days, yet Christ does not say to his disciples 'if you fast', but rather 'when you fast' (Mt6:16). The apostles and the early church fasted (Acts 14:23), and Jesus himself fasted (an example being during His temptation Mt 4:2).
It is noteworthy though that when tempted by the devil during this period, He replied "Man does not live by bread alone." (Luke 4:4). This phrase looks back to Deut 8:3, where God's people were told that their hunger had been to 'teach (them) that man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord".
Matthew 6:16 tells us that 'when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do'. We do not need to be somber. When we fast, we do not merely turn away from one thing (materialism, a focus on this world, reliance on our own devices, daily worry, etc) , but towards another. That other is God and His Word.
When followers of Christ fast, they have food that world does not see or understand. They live on the very word of God, and have within them Christ, who is 'real food' (Jn 6:56) and 'living water' . A day of fasting is not merely a turning away from all that a fallen world has to offer, but a turning TO God, and the offering of our day to Him as a spiritual sacrifice.
A day of fasting should be a day we offer as Holy and pleasing to the Lord. Such a day does not need to be somber, but rather full of joy, because in Him we are provided with all things... even eternal life. Yes, it can serve many purposes, but if it is not first and foremost an offering to God, then who are we doing it for?
Is this extreme? I think the question should rather be; is it scripturally true, and if it is... what is my response?
Do christians follow human 'wisdom' or God's wisdom? Which one do we respond to with joy and an open heart? Which one SHOULD we respond to with joy and an open heart?
Hmm, well yes, fasting can
Hmm, well yes, fasting can produce cranky people and that is not the point of the whole thing. So, having been on the receiving end of some cranky fasting I suggest that in the spirit of Lent and self-denial, and taking up your cross daily, we find something else that "hurts." Maybe for some of us, although fasting causes crankiness (and we won't discuss constipation), it is the easy way out. It makes us think we are doing some good self-denial, and all the while it is a quick and easy solution to truly examining ourselves and our lives and working on correcting one not so admirable aspect of who we are. Do we gossip? Do we tell "fibs?" Do we consider taking pencils, note pads, etc., home from the office a "perk" rather than stealing?" While there are as many examples as there are Christians, and probably more, you get the point.
your seminarian
Or, as one of my theology
Or, as one of my theology professors taught me at Loyola University, constipation produced the Lutherans, or the entire Protestant faith for that matter...The Irish priest in question sufferred from a perpetual red nose and told the story as God's truth. Me, I am usually embarrassed to retell it, and only do so among people who know my sense of humor...but I would love to know if anyone else has ever heard of Martin Luther's problem with constipation and his sudden relief when in the 'Tower' accompanied by his Bible? Honest, I am not making this up! This post, however brought it to mind. Fr. Gawain, maybe you know???
Heidi