My sisters and brothers in the Lord,

Welcome to Week 6 of Disciples Together on the Way. How did you get on over the past week in attempting to find time for meditative prayer each morning? If you succeeded, great! If not, keep trying. And please be assured of my prayers as you do. This week, we continue our pilgrimage together into the traditional Christian practice of self-denial or, as it is often called, asceticism. This week’s challenge will move us beyond ourselves and into another aspect of being a disciple, that is, helping others to be disciples. 

So, this week's challenge is to tell a friend or family member about the gift of fasting and to then invite that person into fasting from something together. This could be a household activity, such as where the whole household fasts from unnecessary screen use for the week. That’s just one example. There are many others.

If you’ve been with us over the past few weeks, you’ll know that this is our third challenge focusing on fasting. In our first challenge, two weeks ago, we began discovering the importance of fasting to the life of the Christian disciple. Last week, as I mentioned previously, we were attempting to wake up early to pray for 30 minutes each morning. If you completed those two challenges, you will now have a very recent experience both of fasting — whether from food or some other pleasure — and also had a week of prayer to help you reflect on your experience.

Did you notice anything beneficial from your fasting? Were you able to be more recollected at prayer? If you gave up some form of entertainment, did you notice that you had additional time, whether for God, for your family, or for others? Perhaps you found more silence? Did your hunger make you more attentive to the presence of God in your day? Or maybe your fast made you realize that your happiness had become too dependent on comfort and entertainment? Did your Friday fast lead to a more meaningful Sunday feast?

When we invite friends or family members to join us in this week’s challenge, we should share with them our experience of fasting and the personal benefits we experienced from that fasting. 

Hopefully that experience, both of fasting and of daily morning prayer, has helped us to see the good that comes from stepping back from comfort and pleasure and making greater space in our life for God.  Each week, in a little way, Fridays provide this opportunity. I have already mentioned that Fridays are days of penance but, perhaps, some of us are wondering why this is so. That’s a good question.

We remember Friday each week as a special day of penance because it was on Friday that Jesus Christ died to redeem us from our sins. Of course, we can never repay this debt. But we are nevertheless called to do penance for our sins and those of others and to unite our own sufferings with those of Christ crucified. So, each Friday, the Church obliges us to do penance, whether by abstaining from meat, or fasting, or some other way.

So, to recap: Our challenge this week is to tell a friend or family member about the gift of fasting and invite that person into fasting from something together. We might consider doing this with our household or family. And as many of us are too dependent on our phones and other devices, I’ll be limiting my screen use this week and recommend that you join me.  

Next week, we’ll finish our four-week theme of asceticism and I’ll be back with another challenge.  Until then, may God bless you throughout this coming week, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Yours in Christ,

+ Earl Boyea

Bishop of Lansing