Prayer and fasting

I find it entirely too easy to let my life get away from me. I know it isn't just me that sometimes feels overwhelmed by the pace of life amid the circumstances surrounding me. It takes conscious choice to keep my attention on the things I've decided are really important to me, and those choices sometimes have to be adjusted for the sake of others who are important to me.

Prayer time this Lent has been more consistent than in the past months, but really intense reflection time, the sort that leads to some nugget of value to share here, has sometimes had to take a back seat to family issues.

There's a neat thing going on in our parish (and a couple nearby parishes) this Friday and Saturday. Apparently a bunch of our high school kids have taken on a sense of unity with the world's hungry. In an effort to be more in unity with them, as a way to help them focus on what they might do in response to the problem, they're going to have a lock-in this weekend. They're going to have dinner on Friday, then fast together for 24 hours, drinking only fruit juice, until dinner on Saturday. It gives me hope to see our young people looking beyond themselves in this way. Not everyone can do this, of course; some people have legitimate health reasons not to fast thus. But everyone can fast in some way in their lives, give up for a time something that normally has power over them so as to gain possession of themselves in a new way.

Another neat thing that has happened in response to these kids' decision is that some of the adults in our parish have decided to support them in fasting and prayer. A fast is easy to undertake, but takes commitment to see through when the stomach begins to feel really empty. It can be a self-setup for confirming one's sense of failure, if you're not careful. But the thing is, a fast isn't really about the person fasting, and I believe God is pleased when we make a personal sacrifice in order to think beyond ourselves. It expands our awareness of the world, and begets more selflessness, which is a good thing.