July 06, 2019 Saturday,
13th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Gen 27:1-5, 15-29
Gospel: Mt 9:14–17
The disciples of John came to him with the question, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not your disciples?”Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? Time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, then they will fast.
“No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for the patch will shrink and tear an even bigger hole in the coat. (…)
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
John the Baptist’s followers who observed the Pharisaic tradition of frequent fasting were scandalized when they noticed that the disciples of Jesus were rarely fasting. The contrast invites a review of the biblical history of fasting.
In the Old Testament the purpose was threefold. First, as a token of sorrow (see 1 Samuel 31:13; 2 Samuel 1:12; 3:35); second, as a sign of repentance (see 1 Samuel 7:6); third: as aid to prayer in time of crisis (see 2 Samuel 12:16ff).
The Israelite cultic law, however, did not require any fast except on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29ff; 23:17ff; Numbers 29:7). It was Pharisaic Judaism that developed fasting into a highly esteemed pietistic exercise. Under this tradition, fasting had to assume a level of gloom and melancholy enough to show to the public the intensity of one’s sorrow for sins. The fasting of Jesus’ disciples did not follow this tradition, and John the Baptist’s followers wanted some explanations.
Jesus did not intend to abolish the practice. He simply wanted to dissociate it from the brand of fasting of the Pharisees distinguished by ostentatious display of sorrow and grief. In the mind of Jesus fasting assumed the purpose of disposing oneself to live a joyful life in God’s grace. In the mind of Jesus, the only way fasting becomes ritualistic is when it spontaneously dramatizes the self-discipline the person has cultivated – one that attunes the body to the higher needs of the spirit.
Fasting in the tradition of Jesus is for the purpose of overcoming the power of evil in oneself (Mark 9:29), of handling major decisions as did the Apostles when they elected Barnabas and Paul at Antioch (Acts 13:2), and of seeking God’s wisdom as when the Apostles did so before appointing the elders of the newly established churches of Asia (Acts 14:23).
The fasting of the followers of John the Baptist was noble but incomplete. It lacked the joy that distinguishes the fasting pleasing to God. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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