To be honest, I get nervous whenever Ash Wednesday is coming up. Why? Because I would be fasting which I truly find difficult to do exemplarily.
These past few non-consecutive years, I have been exempted from fasting on this particular important Catholic day due to pregnancy and breastfeeding. I would say "Wooh, I have ducked that one. God is gracious and merciful to women carrying and nurturing life."
But this year, I have to do it.
During the Quanquegesima Sunday mass, the Sunday that comes before Ash Wednesday, The Lord seemed to whisper to me after Communion, "Do not be anxious. Just do it without thinking about it."
On the day, I woke up in the morning, with a shaking heart and I simply decided trusted in the Lord and repeated His words: "Do not be anxious. Just do it without thinking about it."
I ate a small breakfast just enough to break the fast. Check.
By mid-day, it was scorching hot and I was beginning to feel dizzy, I ate my full meal.
For someone who frequently snacks between meals, grabbing that another coffee or biscuit was out of my ordinary. So I decided to just gulped a whole glass of water. And it goes that way, all throughout the course of the day. Just drinking water to tame the belly's call.
At dinnertime, I ate a very small portion. Check.
After cleaning the kitchen and putting the kids to bed, I was ready to sleep and just end the day of fasting.
Having gone through this whole self-sacrificing, it made me realized a few things.
1. If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.
Right before I closed my eyes to sleep, the Lord placed an certain critical understanding in my feeble and complaining heart:
"We all have to something suffer in the name of Christ. We must have something to suffer in His name. "
When we decide to love God, we must decide to follow His commandments. Love cannot be love without doing His will, or else you are simply choosing your own whims and conveniences.
God's commandments are simple. But the world we are in makes it so difficult. This becomes part of the test we must pass.
He knows how to speak directly into our hearts even with a few words.
Faithfuls souls who wish to love Christ must have something to suffer for in His name. If you wish to avoid suffering, the world offers you countless pleasures, marketing fluffs, and luxury packages.
But Heaven and world cannot be reconciled. Jesus Himself suffered during His life on earth and we all know the course of it all.
2. We all seek eternal truth
When we are fasting, our senses seem to focus more on the spiritual and mental motions of daily life. Deprived of physical satisfaction, our bodies, mind and heart attempt to seek higher aspirations.
When I was doing my usual reading, I was able to focus more and understand more. I tend to ignore the call of my physical hunger, thus there were less distractions and more concentration to satisfy my intellectual and emotional thirst.
3. The Church teaching desires our happiness and discipline.
Some think Catholic practices are too rigid and demanding. Fasting, almsgiving, praying for the deceased, meatless Fridays, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Bu truly, at the heart of it all is spiritual discipline.
If you can deprive yourself meat on Fridays which is a sustaining food for your body, you can deprive yourself of alcohol which is a poison to your health.
If you can fast on food under the Church's teachings, you will gain a spiritual muscle on fasting on anger, lust, envy, and other sins. It is about saying NO. It is about mastering your own flaring emotions. It is about controlling your ill will. It is about building your character.
And with all these spiritual discipline will bring us happiness, the kind of peace and happiness the material world cannot give.
It reminds me that those who seek to climb the pinnacle of worldy success always come back and say "I have reached the top and I was not happy" We have heard that line all to well.
It seems that to truly gain peace and happiness, we must conquer our interior self instead and not the external notions. This reminds me again that the kingdom of God is truly within all of us. Inside us, we can attain peace and happiness. Inside, we can find Him. It reminds me again of our desert fathers who followed their heart's calling to go find God in the solitude of that premise, to forsake the world, and to seek eternal truth.
Final thoughts
I survived Ash Wednesday. And with all the ebbs and flows of our earthly life, hopefully we can survive the tests placed before us.
In the name of Jesus and Mary.
