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Catholic Charities USA
Friday after Ash Wednesday
Readings of the Day
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One of our traditional Lenten practices, fasting, has been adapted by
those who seek to lose and maintain weight. "Intermittent
fasting," popular among celebrities, social media influencers,
fashionistas (and even some clergy!) requires that a person eat only
one meal within a specified time frame and refrain from eating for the
rest of the day or evening. This kind of fasting is distinguished from
our more familiar Lenten fast in which the motivation is to
"grow closer to God." Regardless of motivation, those who
fast for physical reasons and those who fast for spiritual reasons do
so with a transactional mindset: that by fasting one will get
something in return. This transactional attitude is precisely what
Isaiah addressed in the first reading.
Isaiah proclaimed, "This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread
with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing
the naked when you see them..." Isaiah suggested that
fasting be rooted in the experience of those who
involuntarily fast every day: the prisoner, the starving, the homeless
and the naked. Imagine applying Isaiah's criteria of fasting in
a context in which the top 20% own nearly 90% of the nation's
wealth and where nearly 22% of the world's prisoners are
incarcerated and 1 out 6 children are born into poverty. How can we
ignore Isaiah's words? How can we not be impassioned to act in
the face of budget proposals that would cut social services to the
neediest at a time when the top 1% increased their wealth by $21
trillion between 1989-2018? What kind of fasting, then, would be most
appropriate? "Other-Directed Fasting."
Other-Directed Fasting is not transactional in which we
"get" something from fasting, but rather, a fasting that
binds us more intimately to others around us by making us more acutely
aware of those who involuntarily fast every day. When we are
other-directed in fasting, we look outwards before we begin our fast.
We listen to the stories of those who live in vehicles and along the
creek beds or in garages or tool sheds in a back yard. We become
attuned to the 40 million in our country alone who do not have luxury
of choosing when to eat. Their reality tells us what our Lenten fast
should look like.
Choosing to practice other-directed fasting will remind us that our
neighbor is also fasting because her fast is tied to a decision she
must make between eating or getting a prescription filled, paying for
utilities or making rent. Other-directed fasting allows Spirit to
communicate to us in our physical hunger by viscerally connecting us
to the condition of others. Other-directed fasting ultimately
sensitizes us to check our privilege (of having the choice to fast)
and invites us to step back so that those directly affected by poverty
and hunger rise can up themselves and break the yoke of injustice. Our
task becomes witnessing the emergence of self-determination and
accompanying our sisters and brothers in the journey.
And with this we pray: May our Lenten fast be rooted in the gospel
call for social transformation in which the hungry have bread, the
oppressed are freed, and the homeless and naked are clothed and
welcomed home.
Fr. Jon Pedigo, STL is the Director of Advocacy and Community
Engagement Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. Fr. Pedigo is a
2012 Rockwood Fellow for Immigrant Leaders in California and a Senior
Fellow of the American Leadership Forum (ALF). He holds a
Bachelor of Music Degree from San Francisco State University and a
Master of Music from Indiana University, Bloomington. Fr. Pedigo did
his theology studies at St Patrick Seminary, Menlo Park and holds a
Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology.
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