Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Collect of 6th Sunday Ordinary Time 

Lectionary: 311

“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day."

Recently, a Bible study group here at Mount Saint Francis spent a good deal of time discussing fasting. But, as I recall, we talked more about how to fast. 

I suggested that it can be as simple as avoiding sweets during Advent, or abstaining from meat on Fridays. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle for the love of God, which includes daily exercise, adequate sleep, work, play, study, and prayer along with healthy eating may be fasting. Nor do we neglect our relationships with others, and all that entails. 

What we didn't discuss during that Bible study was, why we fast; and that's important too. When Jesus was asked why his disciples weren't fasting, he pointed to the occasions in which people do and don't fast, "...when the bridegroom is with them;" and "...when he is taken away from them." As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, "There is an appointed time for everything." 

The practice sharpens one's awareness of God's sovereign presence and affectionate authority. Each time I decide not to eat that particular food I remember that I love the Lord. 

The Lord's reference to the bridegroom is mysterious; and that fits Saint Mark's theme of the bewildered disciples. They could not know so early in their discipleship, that Jesus knew himself as the bridegroom messiah. They certainly knew that people eat everything but the tablecloth during a wedding, and the party is over when the bridegroom leaves. But his "being taken from them?" What is that about?

There are "appointed times" for fasting. We think of Advent and Lent, but we also lose our appetite when dreadful things happen. Who can think about eating when a loved one collapses or your home burns to the ground? We can hardly hear someone's suggestion that we should eat; it makes no sense.

This gospel points to the Church's acute sense of God's presence and absence in our lives. He engages our emotions; we feel his presence in our bodies. The practice of faith is more than maintaining an opinion about whether there is or should be a God. It's more than a habit of attending Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. 

It's a readiness to eat obediently when the Master invites us to the table, and to stand attentively when he does not. On some occasions he might say, "Come, share your master's joy!" And on others he might say, "You may eat and drink when I am finished." 

Mystics like Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Siena, who are called to a particularly intense awareness of the Lord, might explain this better than I can. But we should understand Jesus's reference to himself as the bridegroom of the Church, and his wedding as the greatest, most joyful, and blessed occasion of our life. We share the banquet with every Mass. Fasting is a sign of our confident hope of salvation. It shows our assurance that all things will be well, and all things will be well, and all manner of things will be well, as Julian of Norwich said.