If Lent is a time for listening, fasting is a concrete way to prepare ourselves to
receive the word of God. Abstaining from food is an ancient ascetic practice
that is essential on the path of conversion. Precisely because it involves the
body, fasting makes it easier to recognize what we “hunger” for and what we
deem necessary for our sustenance. Moreover, it helps us to identify and or-
der our “appetites,” keeping our hunger and thirst for justice alive and freeing
us from complacency. Thus, it teaches us to pray and act responsibly to-
wards our neighbour. With spiritual insight, Saint Augustine helps us to un-
derstand the tension between the present moment and the future fulfilment
that characterizes this custody of the heart. He observes that: “In the course
of earthly life, it is incumbent upon men and women to hunger and thirst for
justice, but to be satisfied belongs to the next life. Angels are satisfied with
this bread, this food. The human race, on the other hand, hungers for it; we
are all drawn to it in our desire. This reaching out in desire expands the soul
and increases its capacity.”[2] Understood in this way, fasting not only permits
us to govern our desire, purifying it and making it freer, but also to expand it,
so that it is directed towards God and doing good.
