MESSAGE OF MONTH

LENT BY EYES, EARS, MOUTH, HANDS AND FEET

“ Lent is not something We do for God , Lent is something We do with God “.

Lent is a time of Repentance, Reflection and Spiritual re dedication in light of Jesus sacrificial death of our salvation and for many, this involves Fasting Refraining from things or activities that one enjoy and for devoting time to spiritual activities.

• Fast from Criticism and Feast on Praise 
• Fast from Self-pity and Feast on Joy
• Fast from ill- Temper and Feast on Peace 
• Fast from Resentment and Feast on Contentment 
• Fast from Jealousy and Feast on Love 
• Fast from Pride and Feast on Humility 
• Fast from Selfishness and Feast on Service 
• Fast from Fear and Feast on Faith 

The Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray fasted twice a week. But after he prayed he went away empty, deprived of the fruit of his fasting. On the other hand, the tax collector who went up to pray did not fast. Yet God accepted him in preference to the Pharisee who had fasted : St. Lk :18 : 9 – 14 .

 Why did Jesus tell this story.? So that we may learn that fasting is unprofitable unless it is accompanied by Obedience to God. The Pagan people of Nineveh fasted and they won the favour of God. Yet God’s people the Jews sometimes fasted and profited nothing.

Fasting is a medicine. But a medicine, however beneficial it may be, is useless in the hands of an unskilled person. We know how the Ninevites fasted and how they were delivered from divine wrath. We read as ‘ And God saw what they did ‘- Jonah : 3:10. 

Hence we have to learn that fasting is not only to abstinence from food.

Don’t just fast with your mouth, but also with your eyes and your ears and your feet and your hands and all the members of your body. Let the hands fast by being cleansed of plunder and greedy. Let the feet fast by ceasing to run to immoral shows.

Let the eyes fast by refusing to stare lewdly at lovely faces. After all looking is the food of the eyes. If what we look upon is immoral or forbidden, it mars our fast and upsets the whole safety of our soul. But if what we look upon is moral and safe, it adorns our fasting. Wouldn’t it be most absurd to abstain from lawful food because of a fast, but at the same time to touch with the eyes what is unlawful.?

Let the ear fast as well. The fasting of the ear consists in refusing to pay attention to evil gossip and slander.

Let the mouth, too fast from disgraceful speech and Criticism. For what does it profits us if we abstain from the flesh of the birds and fish, yet bite and devour our brothers.? Those who speak evil eat the flesh of their brothers and bite the body of their neighbours. Because of this St. Paul utters a fearful saying  “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” – Galatians : 5:15.

You have fixed your slander in their souls and inflicted on them a wound of evil suspicion. You have harmed, in a thousand ways, both yourself and them.

Finally Jesus gives us this instructions as to the condition our heart should be in as we fast…..St. Mt :6:16-18.

        Rev.Fr. Sam Oommen Panackamattam