Gospel:
Matthew 9:14-15
The disciples
of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but
your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom
is taken away from them and then they will fast.”
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Reflection:
What does
fasting do to us? It cleanses our bodies, when we fast we dictate on our bodies
rather than our bodies dictating on us. For example, when we see delicious food, our bodies would normally
dictate upon us to eat that delicious food. This is always the scenario: Our
bodies dictate upon us and we succumb to it.
However, when
we fast, it’s the other way around we don’t succumb to this dictate we
contradict it, for what reason? For the observance of certain customs and
tradition in this case we can cite our fasting during Ash Wednesday and Good
Friday.
In our
gospel, Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees why His disciples were not
fasting. Jesus answered them this: They are not fasting for the reason that the
bridegroom (Referring to Himself) is still with them. Therefore their tricky
question was properly answered by Jesus.
Literal
fasting when done for a good reason is valid but when it’s done for people to
see or to get praise from people. It becomes invalid or useless it’s much
better not to fast when we do it for show.
But there’s a
much meaningful and permanent fasting that God wants us to do. We permanently
fast from oppressing others, we permanent fast from our arrogance and high
sense of ourselves and we permanently fast from our greed and indifference.
Are you
capable of doing these forms of fasting? – Marino J. Dasmarinas
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