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,
and not turning your back on your own.
One of the most familiar of the Lenten spiritual disciplines is that of fasting. Older Catholics – and I mean OLDER – remember the days when each day of Lent required the practice of fasting that was scrupulously followed by the more devout to ensure that one’s breakfast and lunch combined did not exceed the amount of food consumed at dinner! Those days are long gone with Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as the only ‘fast’ days today, together with the refraining from meat on the Fridays of Lent.
Fasting was never an end in itself. As a time-honored spiritual discipline, fasting always oriented us to something far more important than the refraining from certain foods or their amount. Fasting remains a physical reminder of what the human heart of the person of faith truly hungers for. Isaiah the Prophet, in speaking words to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’ points to the genuine hunger that a believer should experience as a person of integrity: a hunger for justice, freedom for the oppressed and love for those who live on the margins of life. That is the kind of fasting that truly gives delight to the Lord of our lives.