Cultivate hunger for God

THIS is what fasting and abstinence seek to accomplish, practices we

are encouraged to do during the season of Lent. It is to deprive

ourselves of what gives us the usual and most bodily pleasure so that

we can develop a certain hunger for God.

These practices are meant to provoke a spiritual hunger for God, a

hunger that does not come biologically. It’s a hunger that needs to be

cultivated, and it is hoped that the physical hunger effected by these

practices can trigger this spiritual hunger.

We therefore have to understand that these Lenten practices, rather

than just some Church precepts that we have to fulfill, have a basic

and indispensable inner component that should not be covered up by

mere external fulfillment of these practices.

We have to make sure that the self-denial involved in these practices

is done by our heart and will and not just by their physical and

material performance. We need to train our heart and will to

experience that hunger for God by linking that spiritual hunger with

our physical and material hunger.

This means that we need to align our mind and heart to the truths of

faith, before they get dominated by the impulses of the flesh and

other worldly factors and conditionings. This is a crucial operation

that we need to do in life. This is when we conform to the objective

truth about ourselves. This is when we are truly sincere.

Thus, in one prayer of the Mass during Lent, we ask: “Show gracious

favor, O Lord, we pray, to the works of penance we have begun, that we

may have strength to accomplish with sincerity the bodily observances

we undertake.”

These Lenten practices therefore bring to the fore the disconnect

between our spiritual self and our bodily self, a disconnect that they

try to bridge. That is why, Lent, rather than just a dull period of

self-denial, should be a most exciting and thrilling season when we do

some urgent repair job and strengthening exercises for ourselves.

This is the Good News about fasting and abstinence that we have to

welcome as eagerly and warmly as possible. That’s because these

practices actually contribute to the revitalization of our spiritual

life that never dies even as our bodily organism will unavoidably

disintegrate one day to be resurrected at the end of time.

It’s important that we see this truth about fasting and abstinence

because very often this truth is glossed over or buried under the

waves and waves of physical, material and sensual titillations of our

environment.

In fact, we need to spread this truth around, presenting it in ways

easily understandable to all kinds of people, young and old alike, to

save us from an ignorance and error that can be fatal to

us—spiritually fatal, that is.

We need to overcome our lack of sensitivity to God and to the things

of God, doing this also with naturalness, without making strange

actuations that can distort the truth about our need for God and the

spiritual and supernatural realities that we are meant to live in.

Thus, in the school I suggested to the kids who, of course, are not

yet obliged to do fasting and abstinence that, after explaining the

concept of fasting and abstinence, they can start doing these acts of

penance by delaying a little their play time after classes.

Kids, of course, love to play. They go to it like ducklings to water.

It’s automatic for them. But precisely by teaching them to delay it a

little and to spend a few moments of prayer in the chapel, they start

getting the idea. Obviously, they need to be followed up, prompting

them what to think, say and do in the chapel.

They actually get things quickly, and that’s why it’s important that

kids, as early as when they can start understanding things, be taught

and given example of how to have hunger for God. Otherwise, the bodily

urges dominate and blind them to the practical reality of God.

Obviously, everyone has to do what is appropriate to him in terms of

acts of penance. There is always hope. Even a person already hardened

in the ways of the world can still be touched by grace if he also

makes an attempt to do some fasting and abstinence properly.

If this Good News about fasting and abstinence is spread and

assimilated, for sure we will be seeing in the future many men and

women who will be at home both with God and with the world.