Fasting/Prayer/Charity as a Team Effort (2024-02-14, Ash Wednesday)

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Homily, Ash Wednesday   ●●  2024 February 14  ●● Joel 2:12-18 ● Psalm 51 ● ●2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 ●●  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 ● ●

 [__01__]  When I was 18 years old and a freshman in college, I found myself signed up for and playing with my college’s rugby club which was an unfamiliar experience on many levels of passing, kicking, running and “commandments or rules” to be followed.

          I also had an experience regarding – not a commandment – but a calling and invitation that would be beneficial to me and to others, if I were to follow it.

          One day, at the end of the fall / autumn season, at the last practice as the afternoon light was fading, our coach one final challenge for us which had nothing to do with passing or scoring, but was related to physical effort. At least, for me, it would be physically taxing …or so I thought.

          He wanted each of us, as members of the team to donate blood … not right there on the field in the fading light, but at the hospital. More on that later….

[__02__]   I bring this up because his particular invitation to give blood – while not officially religious – reminds me now of our traditions during Lent of how we are called to enter – FREELY – in complete FREEDOM – into praying, almsgiving, and into fasting.

          If you read the blue sheet in the bulletin about the official Catholic traditions, you might experience this as a series of rules to follow. I would like you to read and pray over this as an opportunity to grow in freedom – just as your spouse or your family or friend wants you to love freely, God is also giving you – us – this season so that we can love Him freely and love each other freely.    Yes, at times, a truly committed relationship does involve doing certain things …. Or abstaining from or avoiding certain things out of love.

[__03__]   Yes, at times, a truly committed relationship does involve doing certain things …. Or abstaining from or avoiding certain things out of love.

          When I was in the seminary, we were required to do many things and even the “requirement” of attending Daily Mass every day at 7:15 am did at times come across to me as a “rule” than an invitation.  Thus, it was notable to me – that a man who worked in the building as our electrician/plumber and repair person would interrupt his morning routine to kneel outside the chapel during the Eucharistic consecration while we were in the chapel. His witness taught me something about taking the rules for granted and about freely choosing to come before God whether on Ash Wednesday, Lent or any other day.

[__04__]  Lent also reminds us that you and I do not go it alone in life.

          While we might live alone, eat alone on a regular basis, we do not fast and sacrifice alone during Lent or as Christians.

          Rather, we fast and make sacrifices as a community, as Church, as the Body of Christ …and in my 18-year-old young adult example, we were being asked to “sacrifice”as a team of individuals.

 

[__05__]  In our Catholic tradition these days, we are not actually fasting every day for 40 days, but on this particular day – Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday – trying to make it through the day on the equivalent of 1 meal.  And, on the Fridays of Lent, we abstain from eating meat.  

The Friday's abstinence from meat extends for the entire year. That is, we are meant to do something every Friday, 52 weeks a year, sacrificial it could be giving up meat or it could be something else.

          I know “1 meal” sounds lonely, but I think one meal can also can be the one practice which brings us together, which united us.

          In Essex County alone, there are an estimated 100,000 people living with “food insecurity” and this means = “Food insecurity refers to lack of access, at times, to enough food and lack of availability of nutrition.”

          While the measure of your fasting does not put a lid or put an end to food insecurity statistically, socially…it unites you spiritually to those who are hungry.   Our world, locally and globally need your prayer and fasting.

          Fasting on Ash W and on Good F and on other days brings us together.

          Just a disclaimer – I urge you to be sensible and logical in your fasting and sacrifice. For some of us, the best fast we can make is to follow the doctor’s orders about what to eat and when to eat.

          This also brings us together at one spiritual table.

[__06__]  Lent is also about how we can love each other and bear each other’s burdens.

          And, in this case, I was being invited to participate with other team members in donating blood.

          So, I just had to pretend this did not scare me. I remember thinking that I really did not have to donate blood. It would not even be venial sin of omission to skip this opportunity.

 

[__07__] And, given that I was then pretty unsure if it would be painful or weird …I had lots of reasons not to do this.       But, the story of the coach was impressive to me.

[__08__] As a child, he had been the victim of a serious house fire which he had, of course, survived but looking at him closely at that moment, I could see the scars that and that he must have suffered greatly.

 

[__09__]  His life had been saved due to medical intervention and also by the several blood transfusions which he had received.  He never forgot the blood transfusions. This was where our team came in.   He wanted us to give back what he had received.

He also mentioned something about how this would be good publicity for our team, for our college and that we might even appear to be others at school to be “more physically handsome and better looking than we really were”.

[__09__]  And, while publicity and popularity are good things, sometimes, they darken the aspects of our freedom and free will.

          And, the Gospel tells us this today.   In the Gospel of Ash Wednesday we read this:

“When you give alms [charity], do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do … to win the praise of others.” (Matthew 6:__)

          All that was necessary for me to “donate blood” was to show up and stick my arm out. I just had to be present. The professionals in medicine did the rest.

          I am not saying I got over my fear entirely of the needle of giving blood. But, it showed me that what I needed to do was to be present, offer something of myself and let it happen.

          This is also what we are called to do each day. We cannot control the outcome of every situation We are called to pray, fast, to give charitably and to let God do his work through us and in us and through us to others. Just show up ! Your presence and your prayer matter.

Don’t get too caught up in the results or as the Gospel reads: “do not your left hand know what your right is doing.”   (Matthew 6:__)

I pray that our fasting and sacrifice may draw us closer to the Lord and to each other, that these 40 days and beyond and to remind us of the blood drawn by the Cross and to save you and me for eternity.

          Fasting and sacrifice are meant to bring us together as the “team” of the Church, as St. Paul wrote:

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”  (Romans 12:4-5) [__end__]