In our First Reading today (Genesis 9:8- 15), God speaks to Noah and his children. It is God who takes the initiative, who acts first. By speaking to Noah, God intervenes in human history in order to establish a special relationship – a covenant - with Noah and his descendants. Today’s Reading describes the essence of God’s promise. Never again would God destroy his creation as he had with the great flood. Instead, God will honor his creation even when his people fail to live up to their part of the covenant. God set a rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant that existed between God and man.
In the Second Reading (1 Peter 3:18-22) we can hear the words of Saint Peter that speak of the suffering of Christ that leads us back to God. Although Christ died in the flesh, he was resurrected to life in the Spirit. It is through his suffering and death that we have become heirs to new life in him. Our Lenten journey presents us with an opportunity to walk with Jesus through our sacrifices – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to come to a fuller life in him.
The temptation of Christ in the desert for forty days (Mark 1:12-15) recalls our need to fast. Although fasting is only required on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, many people use fasting as a spiritual exercise during Lent. The Scriptures are filled with examples of fasting where the rewards sought and attained were spiritual. Jesus fasted forty days in the desert before beginning his public ministry; Moses fasted before receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai; Elijah fasted before meeting the Lord on Mt. Horeb (also known as Mt. Sinai); St. Paul’s ministry began after a period of prayer and fasting that followed his being blinded on the road to Damascus; and the disciples were encouraged by the Lord to fast when he was no longer with them.
Fasting is said to be the greatest spiritual discipline for those seeking God’s intervention. Combined with prayer, it provides spiritual strength and deliverance in our lives. Fasting can be a means of intense spiritual training that helps us to hear God’s call and walk in his path. Christian tradition also teaches that fasting is a great help to avoid sin. Fasting runs counter to the excessive consumerism and materialism that pervades our society today, for it encourages us to “do without” and find our ultimate fulfillment in God alone.
Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert in preparation for his public ministry. Through prayer and fasting, the Son of God prepared himself for the mission that lay before him. During the Lenten season, prayer, fasting and almsgiving prepares Christians to better celebrate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord.
In his Lent message in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that fasting helps to open our eyes to the conditions in which many of our brothers and sisters live throughout the world. By experiencing some pangs of hunger ourselves through voluntary fasting, we are better able to stand in solidarity with those who are hungry every day, or are suffering from the consequences of poverty in other ways. The Pope concluded by saying that: “Fasting is a spiritual practice that needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.”