Every Easter, it is not uncommon for people to speak fervently about their Lenten fasts.
It is a pity that this enthusiasm has not spread to fasting during Advent.
Quite common in Eastern Catholics and Orthodox Christians, the practice allows for a focus on the spiritual life on the run up to Christmas that escapes the indulgence and gluttony that mainstream culture prefers us to have. In 480, St. Gregory of Tours told Christians to fast three days a week in preparation for Christmas. The practice has survived in various guises over the subsequent years, though in recent years it has fallen into disuse thanks to the Americanised Protestantised version of Christmas which is now ubiquitous, focusing instead upon acquiring rather than sacrificing.
We encourage everyone to consider adopting this importing practice as a means of preparing for the coming of the Lord, especially at the end of a year where Our Lord’s presence within the Sacraments has been withheld from us.
To this end, we share with you a poem from Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, in which he expresses the renewal that comes from fasting during this time of year.
Advent
We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.
Patrick Kavanagh.