Biblical Fasting

• The very first fast was ordered by God to Adam in the Garden of Eden, Carnazzo noted, when God instructed Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gn 2:16-17). This divine prohibition was not because the tree was bad, the deacon clarified. It was “made good” like all creation, but its fruit was meant to be eaten “in the right time and the right way.” In the same way, we abstain from created goods so we may enjoy them “in the right time and the right way.”
• Fasting is also good because it is submission to God, he said. By fasting from the fruit of the tree, Adam and Eve would have become partakers in the divine nature through their obedience to God. Instead, they tried to take this knowledge of good and evil for themselves and ate the fruit, disobeying God and bringing original sin, death, and illness upon mankind.
• At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus abstained from food and water for 40 days and nights in the desert and thus “reversed what happened in the Garden of Eden,” Carnazzo explained. Like Adam and Eve, Christ was tempted by the devil but instead remained obedient to God the Father, reversing the disobedience of Adam and Eve and restoring our humanity

“By setting aside this [created] realm where the devil works, we put ourselves into communion with another realm where the devil does not work; he cannot touch us,” Carnazzo explained.

It better disposes us for prayer, Monsignor Pope noted. Because we feel greater hunger or thirst when we fast from food and water, “it reminds us of our frailty and helps us be more humble,” he said. “Without humility, prayer and then our experience of God really can’t be unlocked.”

Thus, the practice is “clearly linked by St. Thomas Aquinas, writing within the tradition, to chastity, to purity, and to clarity of mind,” Lew noted.

“You can kind of postulate from that that our modern-day struggles with the virtue of chastity, and perhaps a lack of clarity in theological knowledge, might be linked to an abandonment of fasting as well.”

Matt Hadro What’s the point of fasting, anyway? | Catholic News Agency