July 05, 2014
Saturday, 13th Week in Ordinary Time St. Anthony Zaccaria 1st Reading: Am 9:11-15 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. Besides you don’t put new wine in old wineskins. If you do, the wineskins will burst and the wine be spilt. No, you put new wine in fresh skins; then both are preserved.” D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience) A good show is one performed on a platform built on the ground, not on a stage built over the heads of the audience. On this basis, fasting for a show is an unwanted entertainment. When a person fasts to trumpet his spiritual prowess to the public, he uses the crowd to elevate himself. Fortunately one can always dismiss the performer by walking out the door. Too bad for our Lord, he will have to bear not just with the external show but with the internal motives as well because we are always in his watchful eyes.
Fasting was originally a token of sorrow (see 1 Samuel 31:13; 2 Samuel 1:12; 3:35); a sign of repentance (see 1 Samuel 7:6); and an aid of prayer in time of need and crisis (see 2 Samuel 12:16ff). The Israelite cultic law did not require any fast except on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29ff; 23:17ff; Numbers 29:7). It was in Pharisaic Judaism that fasting evolved into a highly esteemed pietistic exercise.
Raised in the tradition of Pharisaic fasting, John’s followers questioned the Apostles’ apparent lack of dedication to fasting. Jesus came to the defence by declaring fasting as inappropriate in times of joy. Fasting is not even considered the most helpful practice to conversion because what is “especially helpful” is service (1 Peter 4:8). Fasting is, in fact, only among the three means to conversion mentioned in our Catholic Catechism. The other two are prayer and almsgiving. (Art. 1686 and 1687).
If fasting has any place at all, it is for the purpose of enhancing prayer and self discipline so that we may handle major decisions as did the Apostles when they elected Barnabas and Paul (Acts 13:2) and when they appointed the elders of the newly established churches of Asia (Acts 14:23). Most of all we overcome the power of evil in us (Mark 9:29), including the evil of fasting for a show!—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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