Sixth Lenten letter of Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rai
Friday 24 February 2017
Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rai addressed a Lenten letter to the bishops, the superiors general (men and women), the priests, deacons, monks and nuns, and all the sons and daughters of our Maronite Church. It reads:
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are three inseparable and interconnected practices that guide our journey toward the Kingdom of God, revealed in the Paschal mystery: the mystery of Christ’s death to redeem us from our sins and the mystery of his resurrection from the dead to sanctify us with new life (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).
Saint Augustine expressed this threefold link by saying: “Do you want your prayer to rise to heaven? Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving.”
Great Lent, and the other fasts that branch out from it, is known as the Paschal fast. It has accompanied the life of the Church from its beginnings, modelled on the fast of Christ, its Head, who fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11) to prepare for the start of his saving mission. But the practice of prayer, fasting and almsgiving had accompanied the journey of God’s people since ancient times, and God called the people to it through the prophets.
From the time of our father Saint Maron until today, our Maronite Church has been marked by a spirituality of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and this is what has enabled it to stand firm in the face of every difficulty and challenge. How many sons and daughters of our Church have followed the path of austerity, mortification, prayer and doing good! This path reached its summit in the lives of the ascetics and hermits, who have never stopped passing on this heritage from generation to generation until our day, through their prayers, austerities and fasts and the spiritual good they pour out by their example and guidance.
The season of Great Lent takes on a new ecclesial dimension this year because it falls within the “Year of Witness and Martyrs,” which began on the feast of our father Saint Maron (9 February 2017) and ends on 2 March 2018, the feast of our father Saint John Maron, the first patriarch.
This pastoral letter has two parts: the first deals with the meaning of fasting, its dimensions and its fruits in the light of the Bible; the second gives guidelines for the practice of fasting and abstinence.
Part One
The meaning, purpose and fruits of fasting
The meaning of fasting
Physically, fasting means abstaining from food and drink, except water, from midnight until noon, and abstaining from meat, milk and dairy products, and eggs on certain days that we specify in the second part of this letter.
Spiritually, it is food for the soul and nourishment for the spirit, a remedy that brings salvation and atonement for sins; joined to prayer and mortification, it becomes the shortcut to heaven, as Saint Ambrose says.
Socially, it means giving alms, in kind and in money, to the needy in their various needs, as the Lord Jesus describes them in Matthew’s Gospel: “I was hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, sick, in prison” (Matthew 25:35-46). These needs are not limited to the material dimension but include the spiritual, cultural and moral dimensions as well.
In terms of development, it means undertaking initiatives and projects that provide job opportunities for our young people and others.
Its purpose
The purpose of fasting is to prepare ourselves to pass over with Christ the Lord in his Passover, from the state of sin to the state of grace, “from the old self to the new self,” as the apostle Paul calls it (Colossians 3:9-10). Doesn’t nature, after its trees have shed their old branches and leaves, enter springtime to put on a new garment and blossom so as to give its fruit for human life? How much more valuable are we than it (see Matthew 6:26)!
Fasting is necessary to reach this goal, as the apostle Paul says: “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17), and as the Lord Jesus told the tempter: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
The season of Lent does not seek to impose fasts and mortifications beyond our human strength, for the Lord desires “mercy, not sacrifice.” Nor should our choices of food and drink become a cause of quarrels with our brothers, because love must govern all our fasting first. This is what the apostle Paul expresses when he says: “If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15). We must also take care that our eating and drinking do not become a cause of stumbling for our brother (Romans 14:21). Rather, let all our fasting be for the glory of God.
Fasting is a means of overcoming the devil, the flesh and evil passions. By his fasting, the Lord Jesus overcame the devil’s three temptations, which tried to lure him into the desires of the world that the apostle John sums up as three (see 1 John 2:16): the desire of the flesh, in the temptation to turn stones into bread by Jesus’ divine power; the desire of the eyes, in the temptation to receive all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and the pride of life, in the temptation to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple so that the angels would bear him up in their hands lest he strike his foot against a stone (see Matthew 4:1-11). In this way “the Lord left us an example in himself” (1 Peter 2:21), so that we may journey toward the Kingdom through fasting and overcome life’s temptations, as Saint Macarius the Great urges: “Fast with the Saviour so that you may be glorified with him and overcome the devil.”
The holy Fathers tell us that when the martyrs learned of the day on which they would receive their crown, they tasted nothing at all the night before and took no food, but stood in prayer from evening until dawn, watchful in thanksgiving and praise, with hymns, doxologies, songs of praise and moving spiritual melodies, joyful and refreshed, awaiting that moment and longing, as they fasted, for the stroke of the sword that would crown them with the crown of martyrdom.
In the teaching of the Gospel and the Scriptures
Fasting, prayer and almsgiving are a Gospel law to which the Lord Jesus calls us in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (6:1-18), as an expression of inner repentance, the conversion of the heart to God and turning away from sin. Otherwise these outward acts become barren and false. It is inner repentance that drives us to express it in signs, deeds and initiatives.
Conversion of heart is first of all the work of God’s grace, which turns our hearts back to him, as the prophets used to pray: “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored” (Lamentations 5:21). God gives us the strength to begin again. When we discover the greatness of God’s love, our hearts are shaken by the horror and weight of sin, and we fear offending him and drifting away from him (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1432).
Repentance and conversion of heart are expressed in humbling oneself before God so that he may have mercy on us. This is what King David did when he fasted: “I wore sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting” (Psalm 35:13). And he prayed: “When I humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach” (Psalm 69:10). And when the prophet Elijah rebuked King Ahab for having sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, the king tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body, fasted, lay in sackcloth and went about quietly (1 Kings 21:27).
The season of Great Lent is an important period of the liturgical year because it is a time for setting relationships right in three directions: with God through prayer, with oneself through fasting, and with our brothers and sisters in need through almsgiving. The prophet Isaiah calls for a fast acceptable to God: “To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).
Fasting is an act of obedience to God. Fasting is not a human invention but a command from God, which the Church has translated into her precepts, and it requires our obedience and commitment. The first command to abstain from a food was the one God gave our first parents: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). The consequence of disobedience was expulsion from paradise (Genesis 3:23).
In this obedience to God’s command, Moses fasted before the Lord on Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights, eating no bread and drinking no water, and God gave him his Ten Commandments on the two stone tablets (Exodus 34:28). So too did the prophet Elijah, who made do with bread and water, offering his fast to the Lord as an act of obedience as he walked before him and defended his faith in him (1 Kings 19:6-8).
And the Lord Jesus, when his disciples brought him food and urged him to eat, replied: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).
The Church has been accustomed to seeking God’s will and help through fasting and prayer. This is what the prophets and teachers of the Church in Antioch did: while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off (Acts 13:2-3). Paul and Barnabas did likewise when, with fasting and prayer, they appointed elders in every church (Acts 14:23).
Part Two
Guidelines for the practice of fasting and abstinence
In addition to the season of Great Lent, there are other seasons, linked to the feasts of Christmas, the Twelve Apostles and the Assumption of the Virgin, during which abstinence is required, in addition to its being required on Fridays throughout the year, except on the days mentioned below. There is also the obligation of the Eucharistic fast.
1. Great Lent
This fast lasts seven weeks in preparation for Easter. It begins on Ash Monday and ends at noon on Holy Saturday. It consists of abstaining from food from midnight until noon, and abstaining from meat, milk and dairy products, and eggs.
Saturdays, Sundays and the following feasts are exempt from fasting and abstinence: Saint Maron (9 February), Saint John Maron (2 March), Saint Joseph (19 March), the Annunciation (25 March) and the feast of the parish patron saint. On Holy Saturday, however, fasting and abstinence remain obligatory until noon.
Generally exempt from fasting and abstinence are the sick and the elderly whose health requires them to eat to keep up their strength, especially those taking medication for chronic illnesses and those in particular and delicate health situations, as well as patients who are hospitalized temporarily or regularly. As is well known, children begin fasting in the year after their First Communion, taking into account their situation on school days.
Those who are exempt from the law of fasting and abstinence are invited to have only a light breakfast, enough to take their medication.
Given the demands of life, and to ease the burden on the faithful, the law of abstinence remains obligatory during the first and last weeks of Great Lent; those who cannot keep abstinence in the other weeks should make up for it with good works and works of mercy.
2. The fast of the apostles Peter and Paul and the Twelve Apostles
This fast, known as “the Apostles’ abstinence,” consists of abstaining from meat, milk and dairy products, and eggs from 17 to 28 June.
3. The fast of the Assumption of the Virgin
This fast, known as “Our Lady’s abstinence,” consists of abstaining from meat, milk and dairy products, and eggs from 7 August, after the feast of the Lord (the Transfiguration), until 14 August.
4. The Christmas fast
This fast consists of abstaining from meat, milk and dairy products throughout the Christmas novena, from 16 to 24 December.
5. Friday abstinence
This abstinence consists of not eating meat, milk and dairy products, or eggs every Friday throughout the year.
Exceptions are the Friday of the week before Lent, the Fridays between Easter and Pentecost, and between Christmas and Epiphany. Also excepted are Fridays on which the following feasts fall: the Circumcision of the Child Jesus (1 January), Saint Anthony the Great (17 January), the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple (2 February), Saint Maron (9 February), Saint John Maron (2 March), Saint Joseph (19 March), the Annunciation (25 March), the holy apostles Peter and Paul (29 June), the Twelve Apostles (30 June), the Transfiguration (6 August), the Assumption (15 August), the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (29 August), the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September), the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September), the Immaculate Conception (8 December), Christmas (25 December), the feast of the parish patron saint and the feast of the Sacred Heart.
6. The Eucharistic fast
This means abstaining from food in preparation for receiving the Most Holy Sacrament during the Divine Liturgy: at least one hour before the start of Mass for the celebrant, and one hour before Communion for the faithful, together with the state of grace, modest dress, reverence and awareness of Christ the Lord present under the forms of bread and wine.
Conclusion
The season of Great Lent takes on an additional dimension in this “Year of Witness and Martyrs.” It is a season for bearing witness to our Christian faith through conversion of heart, shown outwardly in fasting, prayer and almsgiving. But it is also shown in the newness of our conduct, our behaviour and the way we treat people, and in doing our duty and exercising responsibility. Saint Ephrem the Syrian wrote of Moses’ fast: “He fasted and was enlightened; he prayed and was victorious. He went up with one appearance and came down with another. He went up with an earthly colour and came down clothed in heavenly splendour. His fast was his delight, and his prayer a spring of living water. He was a man of wisdom, and his fast was a fast of forgiveness.”
With such a fast we set out to bear witness to our faith and build a society founded on Gospel, moral and human values, through the intercession of our Mother the Virgin Mary and our father Saint Maron.
