March 22, 2009

I love Pope Benedict's 2009 Message for Lent. He offers a mini teaching on the Christian practice of fasting. The very heart of the matter is this: Fasting helps us to make a complete gift of self to God.

“Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor.”

Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

New York, NY