Holy Week: A Lenten Fast

As readers of this blog will know, I have recently been exploring the Catholic faith and practice. I grew up an evangelical Protestant but I've found myself drawn to the Roman Catholic Church.

Parallel to these theological explorations, I have been immersing myself in Catholic practice and discipline. One aspect of this has been my participation in Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week.

When I was growing up, I knew a number of people who did Lent-related activities -- some of my friends even organized 'prayer fasts' for several days at a time. I never participated, and never really understood the appeal of fasting. My faith has always been more rational than experiential, so it was almost like speaking a different language. However, many of them talked about the benefits and insights they gained, so over time my curiosity grew. This year, with the added incentive of immersing myself in Catholicism, I jumped in headfirst.

I organized my Lenten fast around the "Official Lenten Regulations for the Archdiocese of Seattle" (published here by St. Michael's Parish in Olympia). To briefly encapsulate: I would limit myself to a single meal each weekday, though I could add two smaller 'supplemental meals' if I needed to "maintain strength." I would also abstain from meats on each Friday of Lent. These restrictions would not carry over to the weekends.

This is what I learned:

1) Fasting sucks.

The first week of my fast, I felt terrible. Fortunately there were no restrictions on liquids, so I consumed a lot of those over the past few weeks. I also added multivitamins to my routine, mostly to ensure I wouldn't die of scurvy. It did get easier over time, but not by much.

2) Fasting recalls us to humility.

Before I fasted, I used to imagine that I could be pretty self-sacrificial if called upon. I loved God and I loved my neighbor, so the idea of casting my health, wealth, or personal security aside for the sake of another was not out of the question. After several weeks of fasting, all I can say is: yikes. There's a life lesson here: never imagine that you are more virtuous than you actually are. God might tell you to act like it.  Fasting was an excellent way to remind me that I'm still fallible, still weak, and still desperately in need of His strength and support.

3) Fasting moves us to solidarity.

For most of human history, there was always a question of whether you would have food on the table today, tomorrow, or for the next season. Even today, in many parts of the world, there is still starvation and malnutrition. By voluntarily depriving yourself of food, you suffer alongside others. Is there a more central command in the Christian faith, than to take up your cross daily? "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

4) Fasting encourages self-control.

This is sometimes described as "mortification of the flesh." That sounds fairly barbaric, like an Inquisitorial rack, but the word pretty accurately conveys the Christian discipline. After all, we as Christians are constantly reminded of the need to die to ourselves and therefore live in Christ. The ascetics disciplined their flesh in more visceral ways as a reminder to suffer with Christ. Even the lesser degrees of mortification, such as fasting, help remind us to suffer with Christ and die with Him.

5) Fasting points us to prayer.

The first week of fasting was just awful. Prayer seemed to help quite a bit. It didn't make me less hungry -- certainly the rumblings of my stomach didn't decrease in volume or frequency -- but it helped me shift my attention to God. As I grow mature in my faith, I imagine I will identify considerable more meaning and importance in this aspect of fasting.

6) Fasting teaches us a 'vital rhythm' of Christian life.

The liturgical calendar tends to vary between fasts and feasts. During the weekdays we limit our meals, but over weekends we can enjoy three square meals, or even more. There are even a few Holy Days of Obligation (that is, feast days) during the Lenten season, such as the Solemnity of the Annunciation. This variance helps us realize that we are not called to enjoy a perpetual emotional "high" from our faith, nor should fasts continue without end. There are seasons for everything.  For many years I felt keenly the absence of God and the lack of an experiential component of my faith. When I was older, I realized that this was deliberate: I was supposed to yearn for that sort of experience, so that it would be more powerful and more preserving when I actually experienced it.

7) Fasting reminds us of the Passion of our Lord.

Christ lived so that He could die. We preach a resurrected Christ, but we preach a Christ who was first crucified. Fasting reminds us that Christ conquered death, and redeemed suffering. Indeed, by fasting, we can participate in and recapitulate the willing self-sacrifice of our Lord. Because of the Cross, suffering is tremendously redemptive, not only for ourselves, but also for others.

Holy Week: Tenebrae

"It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, because the sun was obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said 'Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit!' Having said this, He breathed His last." Luke 23:44-46

"And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen sleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many." Matthew 27:50-53

"Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying 'It is done.' And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great and so mighty an earthquake." Revelation 16:17-18

A few years ago, in the weeks before Easter, I played a set of sonatas at my church, piano transcriptions from an orchestral work by Joseph Haydn, "The Seven Last Words of Our Redeemer on the Cross." For the Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday, I played the seventh sonata, inspired from the Latin Vulgate of the first passage above: In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum. The piece is slow and somber, and the end of the movement fades away on a series of quietly repeated major chords. Then, out of nowhere, attaca subito: "attack suddenly," without pause.



This is perhaps the most physically demanding pieces of music I have ever played. From a majestic Largo we are launched abruptly into a movement marked Presto e con tutta la forza: "as fast as possible, with all your strength." But however terrifying this piece is at a technical level, it was even more demanding emotionally; for this is the fearsome Il Terremoto. Yes, you read that right: it is, literally, a musical earthquake.

The previous movement, the last of the seven sonatas, gave us a musical representation of Christ's last moments of life. We witness the heart-rending silence of His final breath. But suddenly the very stones cry out at His silence (Luke 19:40), and we witness the earth-rending revolt of the rocks themselves.

This is what we commemorate in the Tenebrae services of Holy Week; this is why we celebrate Good Friday.  For we worship a God who conquered death, and our God stoops to conquer. "But we preach Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 1:23). We worship the God Who Died.

Commentary on Scripture: Romans 1-2:1

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God... to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:1-7 ~~ Paul's customary greeting is extended by subjunctive clauses and prepositional connectors, to include content on prophet ("the gospel... promised beforehand"), Christology ("concerning His Son, who was born a descendant of David, according to the flesh"), spiritual gifts ("through whom we have received grace and apostleship"), and salvation ("to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles").

Romans 1:s5 ~~ Paul received from Christ the efficacious grace and his apostolic authority to evangelize, to promote the words of the Lord.

Romans 1:8 ~~ The faith of the Roman church is already renown, even before the apostolic visit of Paul.

Romans 1:11-12 ~~ Paul desires to come "to "impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established." The next verse seems to indicate that the spiritual gift in question is the mutual encouragement of a shared faith.

Roman 1:16 ~~ There is no shame in the Gospel even among the Gentiles, though the Gospel is in time and in privilege "for the Jew first and also to the Greek."

Romans 1:18 ~~ This verse introduces the extended section on judgment that continues to Romans 1:32.  Paul's rhetorical strategy should become apparent at that point, but for now he is content to rail against the moral depravity of the pagans surrounding the church at Rome.

Romans 1:18-20 ~~ The wrath of God falls on the wicked because of the general revelation ("because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them"). This verse corresponds to the broad thesis, picked up in Romans 2, that divine judgment is in fact applied on a gradient, depending on one's knowledge and exposure to God (cf. Romans 2:12).

Romans 1:19 ~~ The pagan is punished for suppressing and disregarding the voice of conscience (cf. v. 21).

Romans 1:20 ~~ "His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature, have been clearly seen" from the tapestry of Creation.  This is the doctrine of general revelation: that, by the mere fact that we are created and can perceive other created beings, we bear witness to some limited knowledge of God.  In fact, Paul makes the case here that our knowledge from general revelation is far broader than is commonly understood, for from Creation we are able to discern some of the attributes, power, and even the ineffable nature, of God.

Romans 1:21 ~~ This limited knowledge of God among the pagans did not lead them to honor or give thanks to Him, but rather to "become futile in their speculations."  Blessed are the wounds of the Lion of Judah.  He certainly know how to put us theology buffs in our place.  The purpose of theology is to elucidate the nature of God, but this must always be subordinated to our absolute purpose as created beings to worship God: we should seek to know Him more, so that we might honor and love Him more.

Romans 1:23-25 ~~ The pagans worshiped physical idols and allowed the corruptible created order to overshadow the glory of the incorruptible Creator.  Therefore, God allowed their sin to corrupt and defile their physical bodies.  The punishment always suits the crime.

Romans 1:26-27 ~~ Interestingly, the "degrading passions" (which pretty unequivocally reference homosexual behavior) are treated here as a judgment for other sins, not as sins in themselves.  While these acts are described as "degrading," "unnatural," and "indecent," the focus of this passage is on the prior sins for which this conduct is suitable as a "due penalty."  The greater sin, the prior sin, is idolatry and the pagan focus on physical things.

Romans 1: 28-31 ~~ Just as God turned over idolaters to "degrading passions" of the body, so He "gave them over to a depraved mind."  What follows is a list of vices associated with this depravity of spirit, with an evil and rebellious intent.

Romans 1:32 ~~ Here is the key quote setting up the listeners for the rhetorical turn in the next verse.  These evildoers know the Law written on their hearts: from their own conscience and from general revelation.  They also know the just punishment for such sins is death.  Yet they "practice such things... but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" -- they abide in evil and encourage others in evil as well.

Romans 2:1 ~~ One of my favorite verses in the Bible from a rhetorical perspective.  Having established the utter depravity of the pagan unbelievers in Rome, Paul swiftly turns the tables on his listeners: "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgments, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

Every reading of Romans 1 -- every proof-text of the list of sins or the errors of pagan idolatry or the depravity of homosexuality -- simply must be balanced in light of Romans 2:1, because that is their purpose.  The preceding verses are meant to make the believer indulge in his own self-righteousness, so that Paul can utterly eviscerate that pride and smug self-satisfaction in a single rhetorical leap. It is a brilliant performance, and an absolutely inspired reminder of the Biblical principle: judge not lest you be judged.  We'll see a major application of this principle to the doctrine of justification and salvation in the next chapter.