Fasting in the World Today

[ex_restless]

Today's Lenten reading comes from Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 Message for Lent, dedicated to the practice of fasting:

In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one's body. Fasting certainly bring

Comments

[elizabby]

I've been doing a shit job of fasting this year. I must be out of practice - or more likely, out of motivation. I want to try to kick it up a level and do it seriously for this last week, but I dunno how I'll go. Too much going on, not enough sleep.

Funny, I never thought about this part as being connected to fasting, but I've been giving meals to friends of mine who have just had babies (lots of them). Since I hate cooking, this is a sacrifice, of sorts. Certainly an act of self-denial anyway. There are days when a meal out of the freezer is the only thing that keeps the place ticking over...

[elizabby]

Sorry to post twice, haven't figured out how to edit comments.

But I wanted to comment that nearly everyone I know who fasts, at some point makes a comment about losing weight! As if it is some fancy new diet! Drives me crazy.

[ex_restless]

I feel like you wrote that first paragraph from my brain...