Salt of the Earth, Light of the World (2016)

FAST24 is a step forward towards making a good faith effort to prepare ourselves properly to receive the Lord in the Holy Eucharist.

The Eucharistic Fast assists us in preparing to receive Holy Communion wholly—body and soul. The fast is a physical mortification that strengthens our spiritual focus on the Lord, so that we may humbly encounter the divine Saviour who offers Himself to us through the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The purpose of the Eucharist Fast can be traced back to an ancient tradition in our Catholic Church.  In Acts of the Apostles (13:2) we find evidence of fasting connected with the liturgy. In his writings, St Augustine tells us that a more normative practice of fasting before receiving Holy Communion appears throughout the Church after the legalisation of Christianity in 313 AD.

The specific requirements of the Eucharistic Fast have changed over the centuries.  For example, until 1964, the Eucharistic Fast began at midnight. On 21 Nov 1964, Pope Paul VI reduced the fast to a period of one hour.  Today, Canon 919 of the Code of Canon Law states, “One who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain from any food or drink, with the exception of water and medicine, for at least the period of one hour before Holy Communion.”

Nevertheless, many people today still wonder why the Catholic Church encourages fasting.

In Dominicae Cenae (1980), Pope John Paul II lamented the modern-day problem of people not being properly disposed to receive Holy Communion, even to the point of being in a state of serious mortal sin. “In fact, what one finds most often is not so much a feeling of unworthiness as a certain lack of interior willingness, if one may use this expression, a lack of Eucharistic ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst,’ which is also a sign of lack of adequate sensitivity towards the great sacrament of love and a lack of understanding of its nature,” said Pope John Paul II.

The reason why Catholics are encouraged to fast is because we are charged to convert our whole lives—body and soul—to the Lord.  St Paul reminds us: “Continually we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may be revealed” (2 Cor 4:10).

This conversion process involves doing penance—including bodily mortification, like fasting—for our sins and weaknesses, which in turn strengthens and heals us.

In the Old Testament, fasting prepared individuals to receive the action of God and to be placed in His presence. For instance, Moses (Ex 34:28) fasted 40 days atop Mount Sinai as he received the Ten Commandments. Elijah (I Kings 19:8) fasted 40 days as he walked to Mount Horeb to encounter God.

Similarly, in the New Testament, Jesus Himself fasted 40 days as He prepared to begin His public ministry (Mt 4:1ff) and encouraged fasting (Mt 6:16-18).

Fasting is a corporal work that helps to enhance the spiritual disposition we need to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. In his Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini (1966), Pope Paul VI wrote: “Mortification aims at the liberation of man, who often finds himself, because of concupiscence, almost chained by his own senses. Through ‘corporal fasting’ man regains strength, and the wound inflicted on the dignity of our nature by intemperance is cured by the medicine of a salutary abstinence.”

In simple words, the fast before receiving Holy Communion creates a physical hunger and thirst for the Lord, which in turn augments the spiritual hunger and thirst we ought to have.  We fast so as not to spoil our “appetite”, but to increase it for the sharing of the Paschal banquet.

Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blest are they who hunger and thirst for holiness; they shall have their fill” (Matt 5:6).  In all, fasting is an exercise of humility, hope and love—essential virtues in preparing ourselves to receive the Holy Eucharist.