Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 4th March
Message from Fr Paul for Friday, 4th March 2022
We come to the first Friday in Lent and many churches today will be having celebrations of the Stations of the Cross, not necessarily a Lenten devotion, but one that is very popular throughout Lent. As we follow our Lord Jesus Christ step by step in his Passion and Death, we pray for our world and all those in it who are going through their passion and death today. Our hearts and minds turn immediately towards our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, innocent lambs led to the slaughter. Our hearts break as we see recordings and photographs of the devastation and carnage caused by the aggressors, often using innocent young soldiers who have no idea what they’re fighting for. Lord, look mercifully on those who are suffering, on those who have died and on those who have caused this to happen. Grant the gift of conversion to those responsible and stop this war with your divine intervention, we beg you, that the vulnerable suffer no longer at the whim of cruel men. Amen.
Our brief Gospel reading comes from Matthew, (Mt 9: 14-15), just two verses, a question about fasting and the response of Jesus. “John’s disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast.’” It’s John the Baptist’s disciples who put the question to Jesus. John was a far more austere character than Jesus and more in line with the practice of the Pharisees. When asked a question, Jesus never gives a simple answer, he replies to the deeper issues at hand. He asks a question of his own. Would they expect wedding guests to mourn while they’re with the groom? He explains that his disciples will fast, eventually, when the bridegroom is taken from them. With hindsight and knowledge of the New Testament and our Christian faith, we know Jesus to be the Divine Bridegroom and the Church his Bride. The Prophets Isaiah and Hosea described God himself as the bridegroom, so the Pharisees might have remembered this when Jesus spoke of himself as the bridegroom. John the Baptist had referred to himself as the bridegroom’s friend, who rejoiced at the bridegroom’s voice, whose joy was complete now that the bridegroom had come.
In the presence of the Divine Bridegroom the disciples do not fast. Why then do we fast in Lent and why do Christians fast in general? The simple answer is that we are aware that, through our sins, we break our marriage bond with the Lord, that our communion with him suffers diminishment, so fasting is a remedy and an act of reparation for the wrong we have done. Christian ascetics have also discovered that fasting deepens of our love for God and our awareness of his presence in prayer. Prayer and fasting always go together.
