Ash Wednesday is upon us and it’s a good time to give some thought to the spiritual discipline of fasting.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Somehow over the years – although never promoted by any church I have been a part of – I picked up the practice of “giving up something for Lent”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It can be a worthwhile discipline. Fasting is not just for Catholics. Or Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n
Huston Smith in The World’s Religions<\/i> writes about the benefits that Muslims find in their sun-up to sun-down fasting during the month of Ramadan. What he says applies to fasting in general and, even if to a lesser degree, to “giving up something” for Lent.<\/p>\n\n\n
Smith’s four good reasons for fasting are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n
“For one thing, fasting makes one think<\/b>, as every Jew who has observed the fast of Yom Kippur will attest.<\/p>\n\n\n
“For another thing, fasting teaches self-discipline<\/b>; one who can endure its demands will have less difficulty controlling the demands of appetites at other times.<\/p>\n\n\n
“Fasting underscores the creature’s dependence on God<\/b>. Human beings, it is said, are as frail as rose petals; nevertheless, they assume airs and pretensions. Fasting calls one back to one’s frailty and dependence.<\/p>\n\n\n
“Finally, fasting sensitizes compassion<\/b>. Only those who have been hungry can know what hunger means. People who have fasted for twenty-nine days within the year will be apt to listen more carefully when next approached by someone who is hungry.” (p.247)<\/p>\n\n\n
Those are four great reasons to fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Even if you haven’t done so already, it’s not too late to make a commitment – what are you giving up for Lent?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ash Wednesday is upon us and it’s a good time to give some thought to the spiritual discipline of fasting.\u00a0 Somehow over the years – although never promoted by any church I have been a part of – I picked up the practice of “giving up something for Lent”.\u00a0 It can be a worthwhile discipline. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8440,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}