Lenten Fasting Brings a Blessing

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Cor 5:20 – 6:2; Mt 6: 1-6, 16-18

Deacon Larry Brockman

“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart; with fasting and weeping and mourning”!   These words apply to all of us here just as they did to the folks Joel wrote them for.   

Monday, I walked into a room here, and the patient told me he had left his faith many years ago.  But he still described himself as a Catholic.  He had just experienced a medical scare, and so, after 40 plus years of alienation from his faith; all of a sudden his mortality was working on him.  He said he was thinking about God.  I asked him if he wanted to pray; and he said “no”.  He said he didn’t all of a sudden want to use God.  I told him that God was relentless in his pursuit of us; that God was like water or light seeping through any crack He can find to get through to us; and that God was ready any time for his prayer.   

Most of you out there today work here and see this kind of thing often.  Time marches on, and all of a sudden life’s potential, which seems endless in the prime of life; is abruptly stunted for a patient.  And, it can happen to any of us- a stroke, an accident, a cancer diagnosis, Alzheimers, the loss of a loved one.  And if we have put God on the back burner, well you might just feel like the patient I described- concerned that if you all of a sudden turned to him; you were being a hypocrite, just using Him.  But what I said to this man applies to all of us too.  God is pursuing us; and will continue to pursue us until we recognize him. 

Today’s reading is the perfect example of that.  Joel recommends his people take stock of their lives, and repent because the Lord is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in kindness.”   

Lent is the time of year when the Church blows the trumpet, proclaims a fast, and calls an assembly.  Yes, all of us are called to review where we are in our relationship with God.  So, step off the fast-moving train of life for a little while, and let God work on you.  Spend some time pulling back from anything that prevents you from doing that- let that be your “fast”; maybe it’s TV, or sports, or video games, or long lunches.  And use that time for praying and reflecting on what you can do to get closer to God; not just for a while, but in the long term.  And pray about it in quiet.   

Who knows, maybe the Lord will relent, and leave behind a blessing.   

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