Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Mt 9:14–15
March 4, 2022 | Friday

Today’s Gospel

Then the disciples of John came to him with the question, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not your disciples?”

Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Today’s Reflection:

Fasting is mandated not for its own sake, but in order to focus our attention on the spirit and purpose of self-denial. It is not only the observance of self-deprivation per se which delights our God, but the things that we can do and can better do whenever we control and master our desires, entitlements and ego. Jesus and his disciples are aware of the Jewish practice of fasting, yet the Lord teaches us that it was not yet the proper time for his disciples to fast since He was still physically present with them at that time. Jesus’ physical presence gives the disciples the opportunity to witness straight from Him that the love for God and others, and improving one’s capacity for such loves, should initiate the motivation for fasting and self-denial. He teaches us that fasting is not merely an act of rigid compliance with the law. /Vulnerasti, 2022