Why Do Catholics Fast During Lent? Part 1
Why Do Catholics Practice Asceticism
Lent is like boot camp at the beginning of every football season. During these two-a-day practices we push our bodies to their limits. At times we feel like throwing up; there will also be cramping, sore muscles, aching bones, etc.
The Lent “workouts” that cause these aching muscles are the practice of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Within ancient Christianity, these three practices have been considered antidotes to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These three realms of sin originated in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent deceived Eve by appealing to her inner desires. As her desires became awakened, Scripture says that she saw that the tree was “good for food” (lust of the flesh), it was incredibly “attractive to look at” (lust of the eyes), and it was “desirable for gaining wisdom” (pride of life).
These three sins are reiterated in the Epistle of John.
15 Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world (1st John 2:15-16).
From the perspective of the Church, the sin of Eve occurred because her appetites became disordered. That is, rather than using her appetites to bring greater glory to God, she used her appetites to feed what she thought was an agenda that would serve her better. She was wrong.
Through practicing fasting, almsgiving, and prayer more ardently (asceticism), the hope is that we will be less susceptible than Eve was to the devil’s deception.
Asceticism and Mortification
The goal of asceticism and mortification is to stop our disordered appetites, put them to death, and then, all with God’s aid, to rebuild our appetites in their proper order. Asceticism, like military boot camp, seeks to strip everyone down to nothing and then to build them back up again so that they become an effective soldier.
The word asceticism literally means “exercise” or “physical training.” It comes from the greek word askesis. So, when we say asceticism, what we are talking about is Spiritual bootcamp. Just as an athlete trains in all ways to get better at his/her sport, the Christian trains in all ways to get better at his/her spiritual life. Paul uses this exact same analogy in the letter to the Corinthians.
“24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.25 And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;27 but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (1st Corinthians 9:24-27).
Paul’s viewpoints about asceticism are not original, rather he borrows from Jesus’ teachings, which are laden with overtones of asceticism and mortification. For example, in the the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus calls his followers to practice fasting, almsgiving, prayer, forgiveness, and yes, even self-mutilation (if that is what it takes). Jesus viewpoint on spiritual asceticism can be summed up in his paradigmatic teaching about taking up your cross.
23 "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it”(Luke 9:23-24).
Within this teaching lies the root of the historical Christian moral life. If you were a Christian during the first three centuries, you really did take up your cross, knowing that it was very likely that you could die in that manner. But even if you didn’t die on a cross through persecution, every Christian was called to “kill themselves” through baptism with Jesus and consequently, through mortification of their “flesh.” Listen to Paul’s strikingly graphic language of putting to death the appetites that lead to sin.
“We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. 7 For a dead person has been absolved from sin. 8 If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” (Romans 6:6-8)
“Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry….since you have taken off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:5-10)
The Anatomy of the Soul
Asceticism makes far more sense within the context of the Catholic spiritual tradition, which does a good job at harmonizing scripture, theology, and philosophy into a moral system that makes it easy for a person to give themselves a self-examination. The first building block of the spiritual tradition is to understand what the soul is made of. The human soul has three major elements: the Intellect, the Will, and the Passions.
Intellect The intellect is like the headlights to a car. If you are driving at night and you don’t have headlights on, it will be very difficult for you to see the road that you need to stay on. Our intellect (reason) allows us to see the road.
Will Intellect alone does not keep us on the road, however. In order to stay on the road, we must turn the steering wheel to control the car properly. The steering wheel is our Will. We must willfully choose to turn in the direction that the road is leading.
Passions The passions are the gas pedal and the breaks. To the degree that we know where the road leads (intellect), and to the degree that we are staying on the road (will), then we can either accelerate the car, or, if our vision is impaired, we can apply the breaks. The passions are appetites that fuel our decisions.
In applying this anatomy to Adam and Eve, they were created with a perfectly ordered intellect, will and passions. When Satan entered the picture, he caused doubt and elicited desires that were foreign to them. Through Satan’s deception, we witness Eve’s desire (passion) for the forbidden fruit became a competing force against what she knew to be right (intellect). Her passions compelled her to take the fruit (will) in spite of her intellect, and she sinned.
Are Passions good or bad?
There is longstanding philosophical and theological debate surrounding this question. Passions can certainly get us in trouble, and therefore what should we do with them?
The Stoics believed that all emotions were bad because emotions got in the way of clear reason. So they made it their goal to eradicate all desires.
Epicureans were the opposite of the Stoics, they believed in Carpe Diem. Whatever emotion you had was a good thing, so follow your emotions and be controlled by them.
Christianity offers an alternative to both of these moral systems. Christians see desires in themselves as neither good nor bad. Passions, when regulated by reason, and subjected to the control of the will, become important moral forces (See Catechism paragraph 1767).
In fact, as a Christian, one cannot reach their full potential unless they have properly working appetites and desires. Paragraph 1770 of the Catholic Catechism says
1770 Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: "My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
In other words, it’s saying this: if you know something is good (intellect), and you do the good (will), this is a good thing, but it is not the ultimate good thing. The ultimate good is that you know what is good (intellect), you do the good (will), and there is nothing more desirable to you than that good (passions). In other words, you are most happy when you do the good.
How does this apply to my every day decisions? Lets say I wake up on Sunday and don’t feel like going to church. Should I go even though it is out of obligation? Yes. You should definitely still go to church even when you don’t feel like it because it is better to do the good than to not do the good. However, it is even better to do the good and to have a happy heart while doing it.
St. Augustine wrote,
“The whole life of the good Christian is holy longing. This is our life, to be trained by longing.”
The Catholic spiritual tradition offers a a balanced and harmonized approach to the anatomy of the soul, and its whole goal is to help us to reorient our interior and exterior life so that our actions are not just fueled by God’s moral law, but most importantly, they are fueled by our own desires.
It’s like the scene in the Break Up with Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn. When they are arguing about doing the dishes, she says to him, “I don’t just want you to do the dishes, I want you to want to do the dishes.” In the same way, God doesn’t just want us to do what is good, He wants us to want to do the good, and then, in that mindset, to actually do the good.
What happens when my passions become disordered?
Unfortunately, even after God repeatedly lavishes his grace and forgiveness upon us through the Sacraments, we still have these appetites which tend to overtake our intellect and will. This is called concupiscence. When we give into these temptations, we call this sin. This understanding is not foreign to scripture. We see this exact same thinking articulated in the book of James.
“Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin…” (James 1:14-15)
For Catholics, these enticements that James addresses are systematically categorized into seven deadly sins, which all fall under one of the three temptations that we see in the Garden of Eden.
Lust of the Flesh: Lust and Gluttony
Lust of the Eyes: Greed
Pride of Life: Vanity, Envy, Sloth, Wrath
Each of these seven deadly sins fit within the anatomy of the soul under the passions/appetites. That is, each of the seven deadly sins are a fruit of what happens when a neutral appetite becomes disordered.
An Example of a Disordered Desire
Within the category of “the Lust of the Flesh,” there are two realms of sin: Lust and Gluttony. It is important to understand that receiving pleasure through sex and food is not a sin. Sex and Food are good appetites that are innate within each of us. Sex perpetuates our species and food perpetuates our life. God designed both of them for our enjoyment.
“If God has attached pleasure to certain good acts, it is in order to facilitate their accomplishment and to draw us on to the fulfillment of our duty. The moderate enjoyment of pleasure, if it is in reference to its end goal—moral or supernatural good—is not an evil. In fact, it is a good act because it tends towards a good end which is ultimately God himself. “ (The Spiritual Life, Tanquerey, pp 101-102)
It is when we seek pleasure as an end in itself and as an ultimate end that we then enter into a disordered life. A wise axiom to live by is this, “When good things become ultimate things, these good things become idols, and therefore, disordered.”
How does this play out in the realm of sex? We have a natural desire for sex because God gave us this desire in order to bear fruit and multiply our species in the world. Sex becomes disordered when we pervert this God given end. Yes, you heard that correctly. There are A LOT of ways to pervert sex. Even within a traditional marriage there are lots of ways to pervert sex.
This same principle applies to food as well. When we use food as an end in itself, and become gluttons and drunkards solely for the end goal of pleasure, we are abusing the role of food and this is a disordered desire (more on this in the following article).
This same principle applies to material possessions as well. Material possessions are good, they are for our sustenance and survival. But when we end up seeking material possessions in a way that replaces God, (say, for the sake of feeling secure, when it is only God who should be our ultimate security), then it becomes disordered (more on this in upcoming articles)
One can basically apply this logic in every moral category and pretty easily determine whether our use of the appetite is either properly ordered or disordered.
Conclusion
Through asceticism and mortification, which is especially emphasized during the season of Lent, we are reminded about the ultimate end of sin, which is brought about through the cross of Christ. Lent is an opportunity to heighten our awareness to that reality by also dying on the cross with Him. As Christians, “we are putting to death the deeds of the flesh,” because in baptism we “no longer live, but Christ lives in us!” This is the goal of fasting. To put an end to our “old life” and to make room for the “new life.”
“Mortification, far from destroying nature, liberates it, restores it, heals it. It opens up to us the profound meaning of the maxim: to serve God, is to reign: that is, to reign over our passions, over the spirit of the world, its false principles and its example, over the devil and his perversity, to reign with God by sharing increasingly in His intimate life” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages, Vol. 1, p. 380).
Here’s the good news. Lent ends on Easter! Woohoo. Here’s the bad news. We are called to live a Lenten-like life all of the time, until we finally enter into the real Easter season of eternity in heaven.
Over the next couple of weeks, I intend to lay out three more articles looking specifically at the biblical and theological framework for why we should especially fast, give alms, and pray “more” during the season of Lent. If you have enjoyed this, please pass it on.
Godspeed!