Body Piercing Certifacation

Friday, March 11

Year A - Season of Lent - Salt IV.

Color Purple Lit-Abstinence (and fast)

S. King Constantine - S. Eulogio

Is 58, 1-9, Ps 50, Mt 9, 14-15
You will not despise, O God, a broken and contrite heart

+ Mt 9, 14-15

" Then the disciples came to John and said," Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?. "And Jesus said to them," Can Perhaps the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast .

COMMENT

Why fast?

In the New Testament, Jesus asks light the real reason of the fast ... "Do not live by bread alone man, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4). The true fast is thus directed to eat "real food ', which is doing the will of the Father (cf. Jn 4:34). If Adam disobeyed the command of the Lord "not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil", with fasting, the believer will submit humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy ...

Today, the practice of fasting seems to have lost some 'of its spiritual meaning, and has taken, in a culture characterized by the quest for material wealth, the value of a therapeutic care of your body. Fasting certainly physical, but for believers it is primarily a "therapy" to cure all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God ..

Through fasting and prayer we allow Christ to come and satisfy the deepest hunger in our hearts that we experience: hunger and thirst for God at the same time, fasting helps us to become aware of the situation in which so many of our brothers. In his First Letter, Saint John warns: "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart, as he remains in the love of God? (3:17).

Voluntary fasting helps us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends down and goes to the help of his brother suffering (cf. Lk 20, 29). Freely choosing to deprive us of something to help others, we make the next in difficulty is foreign to us. Just to maintain this attitude of acceptance and attention of the brethren, encourage the parishes and other communities to step up the practice of fasting during Lent personal and community joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving . This was from the beginning, the style of the Christian community.

Benedict XVI