Rice and Beans Fast

I was going to write all about the (optional) fast that JVs are challenged to try each Lent, but I found that Tom O'Keefe, a Baltimore JV, put it much more eloquently in his blog than I could.

My community is not taking it to the degree that JVC Baltimore is; we add different seasoning to our rice (for example, we've had Spanish rice and curried rice the past couple of nights). And we've only committed to it for our evening meal-- about half of my lunches since the fast began have been rice and beans; the rest of the time I've grabbed a yogurt or something. But still, "rice week" (we call it that, even though it's a ten-day challenge) has been really eye-opening for me.

I'm trying to take Friday fasts REALLY seriously this year, which is something that I'm struggling with even as I type this blog. I have dicovered this Lent something that either didn't occur to me that past few years, or I just forgot: Fasting is hard. I don't generally eat a whole lot to begin with these days because I sit still at a desk most of the time. I do consume more calories when I work out, but I don't remember being so hungry the mornings after I exercise during Lent. (And I was an endophins junkie all last year, as all of Vatican Row will corroborate. I managed to work out and fast without any problems all of last Lent.) At any rate, I don't remember having so much trouble concentrating or feeling so weak.

I remind myself that Christ pulled this off for 40 straight days in the desert. He was as fully human as He was fully divine, and His fast reminds me and that giving my body a little less of what it wants is a great way to prime myself spiritually. Christ's reasons for his fast were different. Pope Benedict XVI wrote about Jesus' fast and temptation in the desert:

The temptations are a descent into the perils bestting mankind, for there is no other way to lift up a fallen humanity. Jesus has to enter into the drama of human existence, for that belongs to the core of his mission; he has to penetrate it completely, down to its uttermost depths, in order to find the "lost sheep," to bear it on his shoulders, and to bring it home.

For the rest of us, mere mortals already ensconced in the drama of human existence, our fast helps purify us by stripping us of the rest of the drama and focusing on the basics of our human condition—that is, the only important part of the drama, which is our relationship with God. What do I truly need? What do I merely want? Can I, by abstaining from "extras" for forty days, unite myself more closely with God?