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The Spiritual Significance of Fasting

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. - Matthew 4:1-2

And they said to Him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink." And Jesus said to them, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." - Luke 5:33-35

Lent is that time in the desert for Catholics, it represents the forty days and nights our Lord spent in the desert as well as the forty years the Jewish people spent in the desert after being freed from Eygpt, as well as the forty day fasts of Moses and Elijah. Fasting is an ancient tradition that has always been tied to almsgiving and prayer. Throughout Sacred Scripture it generally is associated with two things: penance and preparation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say about fasting:

1969 The New Law practices the acts of religion: almsgiving, prayer and fasting, directing them to the "Father who sees in secret," in contrast with the desire to "be seen by men" (cf. Mt 6:1-6; 16-18). Its prayer is the Our Father (cf. Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4).

The Catechism goes on to explain the two purposes I mentioned earlier: penance and preparation.

Fasting as a form of Penance
1434 The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others....
1438 The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).
- CCC pgs. 360-361

Fasting as a form of Preparation
1387 To prepare for worthy reception of this sacrament, the faithful should observe the fast required in their Church. Bodily demeanor (gestures, clothing) ought to convey the respect, solemnity, and joy of this moment when Christ becomes our guest.
- CCC pg. 350

I find both of these purposes specifically insightful. First, fasting is a form of penance, but penance in turn becomes the foundation of preparation. That is why it is so important that we use this time of Lent to prepare ourselves for Holy Week, for the entering into the great mysteries of our Salvation. On a side note, the Catechism mandates fasting before receiving our Lord in the Eucharist, therefore it is the required form of spiritual preparation for the coming of our Lord at Mass each week.

St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621 A.D.) wrote about the five advantages of fasting. I will summarize them here:
1) "First, fasting is most useful in preparing the soul for prayer, and the contemplation of divine things, as the angel Raphael says: 'Prayer is good with fasting' (Tobit 12:8)"
2) "Another advantage of fasting is that it tames the flesh; and such a fast must be particularly pleasing to God, because He is pleased when we crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, as St. Paul teaches us in his letter to the Galatians; and for this reason, he himself says, "But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway' (Gal 5:24, 1 Cor 9:27)."
3) "Another advantage is that we honor God by our fasts when we fast for His sake. Thus the apostle Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans: 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service' (Romans 12:1). In the Greek, "reasonable service" (logiken latreian) is "reasonable worship"; and St. Luke speaks of this worship when mentioning the prophetess Anna: 'And she was a widow until fourscore and four years, who departed not from the temple, by fasting and prayers serving night and day' (Lk 2:37)"
4) "A fourth advantage of fasting is that it is a satisfaction for sin. Many examples in Scripture prove this. The Ninivites appeased God by fasting, as Jonah testifies. The Jews did the same, for by fasting with Samuel, they appeased God and gained victory over their enemies (1 Sam 7:8-10). The wicked king Ahab, by fasting and sackcloth, partly satisfied God (1 Kings 21:27-28).
5) Lastly, fasting is meritorious, and is very powerful in obtaining favors. Anna, the wife of Elcanor, although she was barren, deserved by fasting to have a son (1 Sam 7, 20). So St. Jerome, in his second book against Jovinian, thus interprets these words of Scripture: 'She wept and did not take food, and thus Anna, by her abstinence, deserved to bring forth a son' Sarah, by a three days' fast, was delivered from a devil, as we read in the book of Tobit (Tobit 3:10, 8:3).
"But there is a remarkable passage in the Gospel of St. Matthew on fasting: 'But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father, who is in secret; and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee' (Mt 6:17:18). The words 'will repay thee' signify 'will give thee a reward,' for they are opposed to these other words: 'For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.' Wherefore hypocrites, by their fasting, receive their reward: human praise; the just, by fasting, receive their reward also: divine praise."
- taken from Live Well, Die Holy: The Art of Being a Saint, Now and Forever, St. Robert Bellarmine, Sophia Press pgs. 57-62

So here we find the various reasons why fasting is spiritually significant. It is not some outdated ritual, rather it is a means of growing in holiness and of pleasing God. It is a channel of grace.

During this Lenten season let us, if we are able, enter into the season more fully by almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Let us particularly consider the Fridays of Lent as opportunities to offer up our temporal needs in order to become more completely united with Christ in the desert and on the Cross.

In Christ,
Joe