From Our Pastor 
 
     Traditionally there are three great disciplines that Catholics are called to embrace during the season of Lent. I wrote about the first one of them last week, prayer. This week I thought that I would say a few words about the second of these disciplines; the one that is most often associated with Lent, fasting. This may be the one that people complain about the most. Growing up it was the one that I may have dreaded the most. 
 
     I think that it is safe to say that all of us have given up something for Lent in the past. When I was young, the thing that I gave up was often chosen for me by my parents. As I got older and was able to choose on my own, I think that I would sometimes give something up for the wrong reason. Now, as a mature Catholic man, I hope that I fast, and choose what to fast from, for the right reason. We shouldn’t give something up because someone tells us to; we shouldn’t fast because we just want to lose weight or break a bad habit. Our fasting can, and should, have a spiritual purpose. Our fasting should do something to us. 
 
     Saint Augustine, when looking back at his life and trying to understand why he had lived the way he had prior to his conversion, came to this conclusion. He said that God creates us with a thirst. The only thing that can quench that thirst is God, but we don’t know that. We spend our lives trying to find the thing that will satisfy that thirst. The problem is that, since God is infinite, the thirst He has placed within us can only be quenched by something that is also infinite. We try to use the things of the world, but the things of the world are finite. That means they can’t possibly satisfy us. Still, we try to use those things (Augustine defines them as power, pleasure, honor, and money) and make them the center of our lives. No matter how much of a particular thing we use, we find that we are never satisfied. Augustine, after his conversion finally says this. “God, my soul wasn’t at rest until it came to rest in thee.” 
 
     Why fast? We fast so that we can try to remove from our lives the things that we try to use to satisfy that thirst for God. We try to take the things that we have put at the center of our life and remove them so that God can fill their place. We fast so that, as Saint Augustine tells us, our soul can rest in God. I pray that this Lent God will help all of us to do the things that we can to be changed. I pray that, when we arrive at Easter morning, we will have been changed by our Lenten practices and our souls are at rest in God. 
 
 
God Bless, Fr. Jack