If You Need Help Fasting ...

Back in the Fall, after I wrote a couple of posts about fasting, I was contacted by the kind folks at Live the Fast.  They are an apostolate dedicated to helping people integrate the ancient practice of fasting into their spiritual lives. I  recommend visiting their website, where you will find plenty of resources:
articles, quotes from saints and popes regarding fasting,written testimonials, blog posts, videos on the spirituality of fasting from the apostolate's founder as well as Scott Hahn and Mother Olga of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth, and nutritious breads ready to order.

Live the Fast sent me a sample of their breads. (You can order three dozen rolls, enough for nine days, for $23.50. Live the Fast's founder owns LaVallee’s Bakery Distributors, New England’s premier provider of artisan breads.) Because breads typically found on our supermarket shelves lack the nutritional value of breads used in biblical times, LaVallee used his baking expertise to produce highly-nutritious fasting breads - no untreated, unbleached flours and no artificial preservatives or additives.  If you wish to fast on bread alone, but are cognizant of your nutritional needs, these would be the people to contact.

If you peruse their website you will see that they offer the book Fast With the Heart by Fr. Slavko Barbaric.  I have not read the book.  It may have very good things to say about fasting, but the late Fr. Barbaric was associated with the alleged apparitions occurring at Medjugorje, which have not received Church-approval, and which I personally have had great reservations about for a number of years. So, I draw that to your attention.

Fasting - Has Anyone Else Had This Experience?

In my last post I reflected upon the value of fasting.  I also admitted that I have rarely practiced fasting outside of the Church's prescribed days.  In the past couple of months however, I have fasted for part of the day - small breakfast, skipped lunch, and then had a big 'ole dinner.  Here is something crazy that I've noticed though, and I would love to hear if anyone else has experienced it:  If I miss a meal in the course of a usual day - as when I forget my lunch at home - then I feel absolutely famished.  But if I tell the Lord that I am going to fast from lunch, then the hunger pains or either light, last for only a brief time, or simply never come.

I notice this on Ash Wednesday and  Good Friday too, when we fast for the entire day - the hunger is never as bad as I had expected.   Is there something psychological at work here?  When we are deprived of food against our will, we pine for it; but when we make an intentional decision to abstain from it, we don't hunger as greatly?  And if that is the case, then why do I experience hunger so strongly when dieting?  Does offering the hunger as prayer somehow change the psychological/physical experience?

"When I Fast, I Fast. And When I Eat Pizza, I EAT PIZZA!"

Last night I woke up a little before 2 a.m., and decided to hit the fridge for a couple of pieces of the kids' left over pizza.  Like millions of others yesterday, I had joined Pope Francis in fasting and praying for peace throughout the world, and especially in Syria.  And I'll tell ya, after a good fast, Little Caesar's pizza had never tasted better!  As I sincerely thanked God for such delicious food, I recalled a story from Christopher West's At the Heart of the Gospel:

Teresa of Avila (one of the saints I most admire) was once caught by her sisters, in the middle of the night, scarfing down partridge.  Seeing the shocked looks on their faces their holy mother responded, "When I fast, I fast; and when I eat partridge, I eat partridge!"  It's a great lesson on why we Christians fast.  It isn't that food or our bodily appetites are "bad," or "sinful."  Rather, for a limited time, we seek the fulfillment of an even deeper hunger.  In yesterday's fast we expressed to God our hunger for peace in the world. 

I don't know how many of us practice fasting, except on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday.  I've hardly ever done it.  When I began researching the prayer life of Jesus a few years back, and His teaching on prayer, I recognized that I was called - that all of us are called - to unite fasting to our prayer for great needs.  It was Jesus' practice; and in God's providence, it is a prerequisite for His release of certain graces.  Kudos to Pope Francis for bringing it into our prayers for peace!

Just don't let anyone get the wrong impression that we Catholics frown upon the feast.  We love to feast!  We've just found that the food tastes that much better after a day of prayer and fasting!