Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E95: The Power of Fasting (And Why You Should Do It)

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E95: The Power of Fasting (And Why You Should Do It) · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  Today, you know, there's certainly Christians being
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  persecuted and martyred worldwide, but in the West, we
• 0:05
  are pretty comfortable, Yeah. Do you think that fasting needs
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  to become more prevalent? Absolutely practiced.
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  Wherever you have serious Christianity, you're going to
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  have serious fasting and those two things go together.
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  I think people are really wanting that.
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  We don't want soft soap religion anymore.
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  So when the Christian fasts and he's sacrificing food, he's
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  going to the depths of his soul. The most basic thing that you
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  need say no. It's something that we see
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  across all religions, cultures and creeds.
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  People recognize that there's something about fasting that
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  makes us spiritually vulnerable. Hello everybody, welcome back to
• 0:45
  the Lila Rose podcast. OK, it is about 3 weeks now into
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  Lent. For those that are observing
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  Lent, this is a special season before Easter where we celebrate
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  many of us Christians of many different traditions celebrate
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  the Risen Lord on Easter Sunday. And I wanted to do an episode to
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  talk about Lenten practices because I think it's very
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  important. And if you already do or you
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  don't practice Lent, I think this episode will at least be
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  enlightening because we're going to have on a amazing Norbertine
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  priest. He's from the Norbertine order,
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  but he has been studying theology and philosophy for over
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  a decade. His name is Father Peter Adrian,
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  and he is also the chef and the Brewster at Saint Michael's
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  Abbey in Southern California. So he's very close to food.
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  He's an expert on food, but he's also an expert on theology and
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  philosophy. And he has a lot to say about
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  the historical traditions of Lent in Christendom at large,
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  how Lent is different from like intermittent fasting, or there's
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  the spiritual fasting is different from say, fasting that
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  you do for health reasons or for your diet reasons.
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  He talks about other Lenten practices that are very
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  important and powerful to draw us closer to God and some of the
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  history behind it. So I think you're going to find
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  it really fascinating. I love talking to Father Peter
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  Adrian, and I love what he had to say, especially about this
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  idea of feasting alongside fasting.
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  So we fast to prepare for the feast, and the feast also gives
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  us that moment to celebrate this foretaste of heaven.
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  And then we go back to fasting to prepare us for the feast and
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  this kind of cycle of living the spiritual life and training
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  ourselves to hear from God and training ourselves to be open to
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  the Holy Spirit and in our walk with Christ.
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  So hope you enjoy it. As always, don't forget to
• 2:35
  support us with Patreon and locals either.
• 2:38
  Community is great. We love to get your support.
• 2:40
  That's how this podcast reaches more people.
• 2:42
  And also I'm praying for our listeners.
• 2:44
  I love you guys. I'm so grateful for you guys and
• 2:46
  I'm praying for you all during this Lenten season that you can
• 2:49
  draw closer to God. A huge shout out to our sponsor,
• 2:52
  the Amen app perfect for Lent. This is a free prayer app
• 2:56
  created by the Augustine Institute.
• 2:58
  You can download it at the link in the bio.
• 3:00
  I listen to the Amen app almost every day for the daily
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• 3:20
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• 3:24
  Father Peter Adrian, welcome to the podcast.
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  Thank you so much Lila for having me on.
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  I've heard great things about you.
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  Well, hopefully from reliable sources.
• 3:32
  I think so. We've had your Is he your boss,
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  Father Ambrose? He was my boss for a very, very
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  long time. OK, so we go way back.
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  He was my novice master. What does that mean to be a
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  novice master? Well, when a man decides to
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  enter religion and enter a monastery, he has to go through
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  a pretty lengthy process. And the first part of his
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  formation is called the novitiate.
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  It's where we kind of break men in.
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  They get the habit, they get their new name, and they learn
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  what religious life is all about.
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  And so Father Ambrose showed me the ropes, as it were in, in
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  those first first years of my formation at, in becoming a
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  religious and a priest. So he's been my boss for a good
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  number of years, probably 10 years.
• 4:18
  Wow. Well, he's amazing.
• 4:19
  We've had about this show a couple times to talk about
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  angels, demons and Halloween. He's been been great.
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  So you said they break you in and then notice it?
• 4:29
  Oh, for sure. What does that mean to be broken
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  in? And what does Father Ambrose do
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  to break one in? You know, there's whips.
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  No, I'm joking. There's, there's he Father
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  Ambrose being a good novice master, he's basically showing
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  what it is to be a St. on a daily basis.
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  So coming to prayers regularly, how to say Mass, all the
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  philosophy and thought theology that you need to Start learning.
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  But the novation in a particular way is really focused on
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  spirituality. So really developing the heart
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  of a priest and a religious and a man who's set apart for God,
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  apart from the world, the flesh and the devil.
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  And so he really helps the young men and inspires them to want to
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  live our life that I think that's kind of like the 1
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  fundamental way of, of breaking you in.
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  But there's a lot of practical things like got to learn how to
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  sing, how to sing, chant, how to serve Mass there.
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  There's a good number of of just practical details that that you
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  learn in the monastery. But then also a lot of the
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  spiritual aspects of of prayer and penance and even teaching us
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  how to fast, which is something that we're going to be talking
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  about. That's great.
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  Yeah. So I'm excited to talk to you
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  about Lent because we are not in the middle of Lent, but getting
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  there already. We're actually Head start.
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  It's a weekend and there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of
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  questions that people have about why, why Lent, what is Lent, the
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  biblical background for Lent, fasting, all of these things.
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  But before that, what is your story?
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  What, why did you become a priest?
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  What it what made you feel called to become a priest?
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  You said were set apart for God and where are you from?
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  Well, I'm from a little town called Kitchener Waterloo, and
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  it's just about an hour West of Toronto and I grew up in a
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  pretty normal family in southern Ontario.
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  There, I'd say around the age of 19, I had a pretty dramatic
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  conversion back to the faith that involved a close friend
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  who's now a priest, Father David Reitzel.
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  And he really helped kind of inspire me.
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  We both kind of converted one another.
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  We were both, he was kind of like a Pagan Catholic.
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  I was totally secular in my in my outlook in life.
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  So not even going to mass. No.
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  Oh gosh, no. Just a normal 19 year old kid.
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  Yeah. And so.
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  Are you games and girls like Are you into?
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  Yeah, no, pretty salty past. But at at the same time, Father
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  Reitzel was at that time was not very practicing.
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  He was kind of a lukewarm Catholic.
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  And so then I would be challenging him all the time and
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  saying, like, you know, you say you're a Catholic, but you don't
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  hold church's teaching on contraception.
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  You don't hold the church's teaching on, on this, that or
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  the other thing. And so he started realizing that
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  eventually we went on this World Youth Day experience at the end
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  of our very dangerous because I left World Youth Day convinced
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  of Christianity. I didn't know whether I was
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  going to be a Catholic or what, but I just knew that Jesus
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  Christ was God. That was the only truth I knew
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  for certain coming away from that trip.
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  And eventually I became much more convinced of the Catholic
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  faith and then I converted him back.
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  And then our group of friends that was going through, going
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  through university together, a number of us all entered
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  seminary together and after, after college and the we all
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  persevered miraculously. They're all priests.
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  They're all priests. 3 Three of them are, are diocesan.
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  One's a Jesuit, another one's a Franciscan, and other one is a
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  resurrectionist. So we were all.
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  Not an insurrectionist. Not an insurrectionist, no,
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  although you know, they're probably a few of them in there
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  that that are. You never know.
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  But the the bulk were of us all, all persevered.
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  And so I have a great friend base back home in Canada of, of
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  Catholic priests that I still keep in contact with.
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  And, and I, I, I cherish their friendships immensely.
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  But so, yeah, it was a radical conversion to Catholicism and
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  then eventually in into seminary life and, and then even being a
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  diocesan seminarian there at, at, at Saint Philip Murray's Inn
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  at the Toronto Oratory. That's where I met the
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  Norbertine's. Actually.
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  I was studying for the Hamilton Diocese and my last year there
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  was the first year that the Norbertines passed, passed by
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  and we, we still send our men up there today for theological
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  formation. And Father Ambrose was there.
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  He came and made a visit because he was checking out the place.
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  He wanted to know if we're, if he wanted to send his men there.
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  And I served his Mass and I just, I was thinking to myself
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  and the sacristy was like, that is the most perfectly executed
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  low Mass that I've ever been to. I was, is is pretty perfect.
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  And then in the sacristy, he gave me his blessing.
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  He gave me his card as vocation director.
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  And I took his card and I said, thank you very much, father.
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  And he's like, don't let you know, don't let your vocation
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  director see that I and I went out through the sacristy doors
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  and had literally ripped up the card right there.
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  And I said, I'm no way. I'm joining a bunch of nut jobs
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  in white down in California. Are you kidding me?
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  I walked away. But lo and behold, after three
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  years of seminary formation, I found myself really desiring
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  religious life, really intent on having community life, living
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  the bows of poverty, chastity, obedience.
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  And that just wasn't present in the diocesan life.
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  It wasn't possible. I entered seminary with some of
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  my closest friends, but I knew that we are all going to be in
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  different parishes scattered throughout Southern Ontario.
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  And for me to be a priest and to live this life as a priest,
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  well, I had to become a religious.
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  And so St. Michael's was the 1st place I
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  stopped and it stuck. Wow, and that St.
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  Michael's Abbey here in Southern California.
• 10:57
  Yes, beautiful place. It's a very beautiful place.
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  If you're ever in Southern California, you have to stop by
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  Saint Michael's Abbey for sure. It is an amazing place.
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  So two things I just have to ask before getting to Lent.
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  First of all, I think people listening, some of them may know
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  the difference, but it's kind of a niche thing to understand is
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  the difference between a diocesan priest and then a
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  religious being in a religious order as a priest.
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  And you said for you, you would have these other friends with
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  diocesan priests, but they were scattered in different churches.
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  My understanding is it can be lonely because you're a priest.
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  You're the rector. Maybe you have an assistant
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  priest, you have your Deacon. But it's, you know, you're not
• 11:39
  living in as much of A community as in a religious order.
• 11:42
  You've got your brothers. You know, you've got, I don't
• 11:44
  know how many of you are at Saint Michael's Abbey.
• 11:46
  I hear it's packed. Yeah, it's about a 70 men or or
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  so that we have living on site there.
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  And then we also have a group of religious sisters, Dominican
• 11:55
  Rosarian sisters, and there's seven of them that I work every
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  day with in the kitchen, so. Beautiful.
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  Oh, you're in the kitchen? Yeah, I'm the chef, so.
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  Oh, you're the chef? Yeah, so.
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  For fair meal. Exactly.
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  Well, hey, it's fasting. OK.
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  All right. If you, if you ever want to stop
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  by for for a warm meal, please, Easter's coming up.
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  So if you, if you ever want to come by it, by the Abbey, I'm
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  happy to make a make you a plate of something.
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  So you cook for the entire Abbey.
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  Yes, I'm, I'm the head chef. And then like I said, I have
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  seven other sisters who also do a lot of our kind of the sous
• 12:29
  chefs. And then also under me are a
• 12:32
  number of the seminarians and Frottier's, the brothers of the
• 12:35
  monastery who also work, work with me.
• 12:37
  So it's a big, it's a big operation that feeds close to
• 12:42
  100 people breakfast, lunch and dinner every every day, so.
• 12:47
  Oh my goodness. And so you are the perfect
• 12:49
  person to talk to you about fasting, besides your
• 12:50
  theological and philosophical knowledge.
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  Absolutely. Well, these days, you know,
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  fasting and being so close to the food, nobody's going to see
• 13:00
  whether you or not, you know, if I sneak a little food, there's
• 13:03
  there's there. No, I got the.
• 13:06
  Keys. I know I got the I got the keys
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  to the to the fridge and to the wine cellar, so that comes with
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  its own set of temptations I guess.
• 13:13
  Do you have a favorite thing to make?
• 13:18
  Yes, I would. I would say for our Christmas
• 13:22
  dinner is always something fun to make.
• 13:23
  We we have two staples every every year that are kind of set
• 13:27
  in stone, but doing no bake prime rib every year for the
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  community is so it's always it's easy and it's a crowd pleasure
• 13:36
  across the board. So that some other meals that
• 13:40
  I'm looking forward to making when we get into Easter, I'm
• 13:43
  kind of salivating already thinking about it would be like
• 13:46
  JFK lobster bisque with loud beef tenderloin Ala Rossini.
• 13:51
  You know what? The frog on top.
• 13:52
  And now? We know why that place is
• 13:55
  packed. Yeah, exactly.
• 13:57
  Well, we, we, we, we do when it's a feasting season, when you
• 14:02
  have a, a feast, you really go all out for that.
• 14:06
  And that's the point of fasting, is that during that time of
• 14:09
  fasting, you're preparing yourself spiritually for and,
• 14:14
  and physically for, for that feast.
• 14:17
  And so a community that fasts well also knows how to feast
• 14:21
  well. And there's a real logic between
• 14:25
  built into that in the Catholic sensibility of things.
• 14:28
  And so, yeah, some people, I've had many people who've come for
• 14:32
  our Christmas dinner or our Easter dinner that because we'll
• 14:36
  invite people out from outside the community to come share it,
• 14:40
  share that meal with us. And they're always, they always
• 14:42
  say this is the best Christmas dinner I've ever had because or
• 14:46
  when I was making steaks for for Jordan Peterson, you know,
• 14:51
  that's a fun, fun, fun story. So he, he came and, you know,
• 14:56
  you spare no expense when when somebody of of importance is
• 15:00
  coming to visit the monastery or there's something kind of
• 15:03
  special happening. And so you try to get that right
• 15:07
  and. But what kind of steak did you
• 15:09
  make, Jordan Peterson? He takes his steak with
• 15:13
  practically nothing on it. Funnily enough, I put, I did
• 15:18
  basic, a basic sear and put salt and pepper on it and I served
• 15:22
  him, served it to him. He's like, I can't handle this
• 15:24
  because of the pepper. He's like one second.
• 15:28
  So he takes his steak medium and so went back into the kitchen
• 15:32
  quickly. I'm just luckily I bought more
• 15:35
  obviously bought backup steaks and prepared it to his liking
• 15:40
  and he said it was the best steak he's ever had.
• 15:42
  So that's awesome. I.
• 15:44
  Praise. Pat myself on the back there so.
• 15:47
  I'll be around soon with my husband for some steak please.
• 15:51
  Like I said, there's there's always a spot there for you at
• 15:54
  our table, Lila so. Thank you.
• 15:56
  Well, Jordan Peterson, you know, I, I saw recently his lovely
• 15:59
  wife Tammy give you the Catholic or is coming, excuse me, into
• 16:03
  the church. This Easter.
• 16:04
  What wonderful news. Yes, praise God and and I'm
• 16:09
  hopefully he's not too far behind.
• 16:10
  He's not too far from the Kingdom.
• 16:12
  You know that one. So.
• 16:13
  Keep giving him some stakes. That seems like Abby.
• 16:17
  Well, I'll, I'll, I'll be sure to hopefully he does come back
• 16:21
  to the Abbey and hopefully we can, we can reel him and but
• 16:25
  he's. You're going to get reeled,
• 16:27
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 16:29
  But no, he's, he's been very generous in coming and coming to
• 16:32
  the Abbey and, and spending time with us.
• 16:34
  And he's a very interesting person within the culture and
• 16:38
  has a lot of very interesting insights into not just human
• 16:42
  psychology, but the culture at large.
• 16:44
  And so we we love having an ongoing dialogue with him for
• 16:48
  sure. I do so appreciate that about
• 16:51
  the Abby is that you have this evangelical event where you're a
• 16:56
  haven of formation, philosophical theological
• 16:59
  formation, but you're willing to be of service to creatives, to
• 17:03
  people out in the culture doing work to and you also have your
• 17:07
  own creative initiatives at Saint Michael's Abbey.
• 17:10
  Oh, absolutely. Which are phenomenal.
• 17:13
  No, we're, we're, we're trying to do as much as we can to
• 17:16
  engage the culture and have something to offer in the
• 17:20
  culture as well, whether it's podcasts or or media.
• 17:25
  We're right now we have the, the great fast going on, on our
• 17:28
  Abbott circle where we're inviting everybody to really
• 17:32
  take this lint seriously and enter into a fast with us both
• 17:38
  what all of what goes with that with the spiritual and
• 17:43
  renouncing food and renouncing this world for the sake of
• 17:47
  Christ and his greater glory. So we have a beautiful program
• 17:51
  on right now. It's and you can subscribe free
• 17:54
  and you'll be sent to emails every day of basically a
• 17:58
  conference 5 minute reflection on what fasting means today with
• 18:03
  the liturgy and how we can put that into this.
• 18:08
  And so it's a really good program, so.
• 18:12
  We will link it, Father. Please do.
• 18:13
  Yes, please put it in the description.
• 18:15
  Perfect timing. Yeah, exactly.
• 18:17
  All right, so we are fasting and you do not eat wheat on Fridays
• 18:20
  when you fast, at least if you're a Catholic or you're
• 18:23
  Orthodox. But.
• 18:24
  And many evangelicals, but check out Goose ranchers.com.
• 18:27
  They do sell seafood. This is American meat delivered.
• 18:30
  But you can get your pork, your poultry, your fish and your
• 18:32
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• 18:34
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• 18:37
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• 18:39
  This is supporting American ranches and farms. 90% of the
• 18:42
  meat that you see in the grocery store is actually from other
• 18:44
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• 18:46
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• 18:49
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• 18:52
  American products, and you're also supporting a company and
• 18:56
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• 18:58
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• 19:01
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• 19:03
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• 19:06
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• 19:10
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  every time you get your subscription box.
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• 19:21
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• 19:24
  All right, so let's start with the big picture of Lent.
• 19:28
  Why? Why what is what is the biblical
• 19:32
  backing for Lent? I actually got this question
• 19:34
  from, I think it was from one of our listeners.
• 19:38
  We were kind of AQ and A, and I mentioned Lent and what
• 19:43
  obviously as Catholics we have this tradition of Lent, but
• 19:46
  what's the biblical basis for Lent?
• 19:49
  Well, I think just in general fasting, we can see just all
• 19:55
  throughout the Old Testament and God is very concerned with what
• 20:01
  we do eat and what we don't eat. Especially in the Old Testament.
• 20:05
  If we just open the first page of the Bible, God's first
• 20:08
  command to us is don't eat the fruit.
• 20:12
  First command, don't eat and so we can really take it take that
• 20:18
  moral prohibition right from Genesis all the way to to
• 20:23
  revelation of God's interested in what touches us close most
• 20:29
  closely. And so if we if we go through
• 20:34
  through the whole Old Testament as as far as what specifically
• 20:37
  Lenten well, it's a 40 day fast. Well, let's take a look at the
• 20:42
  Bible where there's a 40 day fast.
• 20:44
  Well, Moses fasted for 40 days on Mount Sinai for and he did
• 20:49
  that twice. And then you have Elijah who
• 20:52
  fasted on Mount Horeb. And then you have our Lord who
• 20:57
  is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, Moses and
• 21:02
  Elijah being their kind of figure figureheads.
• 21:05
  And so Jesus coming and fulfilling the law and the
• 21:08
  prophets has a 40 day fast in in the desert.
• 21:13
  And so when we as Catholics who are members of his body are
• 21:17
  engaging in Lent, we're imitating our Lord as head and
• 21:22
  we're putting on a 40 day fast in commemoration of him and his
• 21:25
  fast. And so it's not unreasonable to
• 21:28
  to see that jump from our Lord's life and the 40 day fast and a
• 21:34
  Christian doing this every year out of out of love for our Lord,
• 21:38
  the the bridegroom and the and the bride mimic one another
• 21:43
  closely. And so our Lord even uses that
• 21:47
  language in the Gospel of Luke and chapter 6, verse 35.
• 21:52
  He says when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they
• 21:56
  will fast. It's not a question of if when
• 22:00
  our Lord ascended into heaven, there's an impetus for us to
• 22:04
  fast now because he's not here, the bridegroom's not here.
• 22:07
  And so there's a real solid basis both from the Old
• 22:12
  Testament and the New Testament based principally on Jesus
• 22:15
  Christ. It's Christocentric.
• 22:17
  Lent is principally Christocentric in in its basis,
• 22:22
  so. So why should, I mean, obviously
• 22:26
  people who are Catholic and then I know certain denominations and
• 22:31
  Protestantism make fasting a part of their official, you
• 22:37
  know, pronouncement for the people that I mean, Anglicans or
• 22:39
  Lutherans, but there's a lot of evangelical Christians who do
• 22:43
  fasting as well. I mean, I think fasting in
• 22:45
  general is something that Christians understand.
• 22:47
  There's some something holy about it to help us pray and
• 22:51
  draw closer to God. Why is it that 40 days before
• 22:56
  Easter, in particular this time of year, why is this time of
• 23:00
  year set aside for special fasting and penance?
• 23:06
  The reason why it's it's important that we have 40 days
• 23:13
  before Easter, which is the greatest celebration in the
• 23:17
  entire liturgical year. We really have to take it upon
• 23:21
  ourselves to prepare well. And so if you were going to put
• 23:24
  a fast anywhere in the liturgical cycle, you'd
• 23:27
  principally put it right before the greatest feast.
• 23:31
  And so there's, there's a logic to, to having, having a 40 day
• 23:34
  fast right before, before Easter.
• 23:36
  We do this similarly with Advent.
• 23:38
  You know, Advent is also a penitential season and it, and
• 23:41
  it comes right before Christmas, before another huge, huge
• 23:44
  Christian holiday. But the whole point of that,
• 23:48
  once again, those fasts are not just for the sake of like
• 23:51
  beating yourself up and torturing yourself for for no
• 23:54
  apparent reason. It's so that you can enter into
• 23:57
  that feast day all the more prepared, ready to receive God's
• 24:01
  graces, ready to receive God's, God's love and mercy on that
• 24:06
  day. So.
• 24:07
  Why is Why is fasting spiritually good?
• 24:12
  What is it about fasting that makes it so powerful?
• 24:15
  So powerful. Well, as Catholics, we believe
• 24:19
  that we're both soul and body. We're not Gnostics.
• 24:23
  We we're not Manichaeans. We What are Gnostics and
• 24:26
  Manichaeans? So Gnosticism is the belief that
• 24:31
  the that matter is evil, that only spiritual things are, are
• 24:36
  good, and to, to indulge in any sort of fleshly activity or, or
• 24:42
  to have any kind of reverence for the created physical world
• 24:46
  is wrong. Our, our priority and our
• 24:49
  principal things should be only spiritual things.
• 24:52
  And that there's a problem with matter.
• 24:57
  Essentially Mannequin ISM is another kind of a version of
• 25:01
  that that happens later in church history.
• 25:03
  It's a heresy that St. Agustin was fighting against and
• 25:07
  similar, similar principle because ultimately what both of
• 25:11
  those things really boil down to as errors is a dualism.
• 25:16
  There is that are that's completely not able to be
• 25:21
  reconciled. But as Catholics, God created in
• 25:26
  the beginning and he called it very good.
• 25:28
  And we are good, both body and soul, and we're a composite
• 25:34
  composite of body and soul. We can't ignore the body.
• 25:39
  The body is who makes us who we are.
• 25:44
  It's why when we talk about problems of transgenderism or
• 25:49
  people say things like, oh, I have a female soul, I have a
• 25:53
  male soul, that's philosophically dubious because
• 25:58
  it's principally the body that determines your sex and who you
• 26:03
  are. And so that's how the two of us
• 26:07
  are equals as male and female. The principle of equality
• 26:11
  between the two of us is our souls, but the principle of of
• 26:17
  differentiation is our bodies. And that's where the
• 26:20
  complementarity comes in. That's a little bit of a
• 26:23
  sidetrack, but the point and point of the matter is that
• 26:25
  we're both body and soul. And So what fasting does, it's
• 26:31
  basically praying through the body.
• 26:34
  By fasting, we're offering to God our whole self, not just our
• 26:38
  soul, our prayers, but we're we're also offering our body.
• 26:43
  And so fasting is kind of like a position of supplication before
• 26:47
  God by using the body. So we're using our whole self
• 26:51
  when we fast and we pray. What's more is within the soul
• 26:59
  and within the and, and subsequently the body.
• 27:04
  The most basic thing about our body and our soul is the
• 27:07
  nutritive faculty. We need to have nutrition and
• 27:13
  growth before we have reproduction.
• 27:18
  And this is something that we, this aspect of our soul and our
• 27:21
  body is something that we, we share with animals, It's
• 27:25
  something that we share with plants, every living thing.
• 27:28
  The most basic thing about them is that they are able to take in
• 27:31
  nutrition and, and when once they're mature enough to
• 27:35
  reproduce. So when the Christian fasts and
• 27:40
  he's sacrificing food, he's going to the depths of his soul.
• 27:45
  The most fundamental thing about, about his soul and his
• 27:49
  body, the most basic thing that you need and say, no, I choose
• 27:55
  God. That's the power of fasting.
• 28:00
  It's an indirect statement of saying God is everything and I
• 28:04
  need to fast in order to place my myself better in his hands.
• 28:11
  It's it's not something that's just purely mechanical or purely
• 28:15
  physical. There's a real philosophical and
• 28:19
  spiritual reason behind fasting that cuts to us and our human
• 28:24
  nature to the very core. So it's it's something that we
• 28:30
  see across all religions, cultures and creeds.
• 28:34
  People recognize there's something about fasting that
• 28:39
  that makes a spiritually vulnerable.
• 28:42
  And I think that's the real, the real kind of crux of of fasting.
• 28:49
  Beautifully said so the the fasting puts us in this position
• 28:54
  of use the word supplication earlier.
• 28:57
  It's a beautiful word that does openness to hopefully what we
• 29:00
  want to receive during this season of Lent before Easter.
• 29:04
  We want to practice more obedience to God.
• 29:07
  We want to think about him more. What are some of the practical
• 29:10
  things that we want that deprivation of let's say a
• 29:14
  favorite type of food to give us?
• 29:18
  But what is what should be, what's the end game that we're
• 29:21
  seeking? Obviously this posture of
• 29:23
  supplication that you mentioned, but something practically as an
• 29:26
  outcome is it? I think about God more.
• 29:28
  I'm hungry, so I think about God because God asked me to do this,
• 29:32
  you know, and I'm hungry. Yeah, there's a certain level of
• 29:37
  transaction or exchange that we probably don't want to enter
• 29:40
  into. Like if I fast this amount, I'm
• 29:43
  going to get XY and Z out of God, you know, but at the same
• 29:48
  time in, in fasting and, and giving yourself over to fasting
• 29:53
  and in a serious way of really missing meals.
• 29:57
  You, you can, it's OK. You can miss.
• 30:01
  You don't have to eat for the rest of the day.
• 30:03
  You will live. You can wake up the next day and
• 30:06
  be just fine. And, and there's a real
• 30:11
  possibility of, of finding a spiritual renewal in, in that
• 30:15
  people have have done that on countless ways in, in the
• 30:18
  secular world. But what we're principally
• 30:21
  looking for when when we're fasting or to get out of that
• 30:24
  is, is that greater imitation of Christ.
• 30:28
  And So what fasting ultimately does is help curb our passions
• 30:33
  and our will much more closely to Jesus Christ.
• 30:38
  Saint John Clamacus and his Ladder of the Divine Ascent
• 30:41
  basically gives a huge litany of things that fasting ultimately
• 30:46
  does, but it curbs all of our passions.
• 30:50
  So if we're angrier, we'll become more meek.
• 30:53
  If we're lustful, we'll we'll become much more chaste.
• 30:57
  Once again, I was mentioning the fact that in both in the soul
• 31:02
  that you nutrition and growth pre are pre presupposed before
• 31:09
  reproduction happens. So if you're having a problem
• 31:13
  with purity, fasting basically limits your nutrition, which
• 31:19
  basically helps keep in check the reproductive faculty.
• 31:22
  Is that advice you have given in just even outside of the season
• 31:26
  of Lent? Oh absolutely.
• 31:27
  Struggling with the holy purity. Oh absolutely, if if you can't
• 31:31
  deny yourself and things that are licit, you're not going to
• 31:36
  be able to deny yourself when the illicit things come around.
• 31:39
  And so you really have to get into the habit of self
• 31:43
  abdication as a Christian, my novice master father, Father
• 31:49
  Ambrose used to say to us as novices, you know, it would be a
• 31:55
  very terrible thing, a really sad thing, if in religious life
• 32:00
  there was no fasting or there wasn't some sort of cross to
• 32:03
  bear, because that's why we left the world is, is to crucify
• 32:07
  ourselves with our Lord and, and to find the cross.
• 32:11
  And so he'd always say like we should just always be fasting
• 32:14
  and, and in our monastery. And when you have a actual
• 32:17
  culture of fasting, the, the tendency is to be fasting more
• 32:22
  more often than not, because that's, that's what tending to
• 32:27
  perfection looks like in a concrete, concrete way.
• 32:30
  So even in in our monastery, the normal course of action is we
• 32:35
  keep the monastic fast strictly throughout Lent so that that
• 32:41
  most contraires just won't eat until dinner.
• 32:45
  That's that's when you just take one meal a day.
• 32:47
  That's not and that's not superhuman, but it's it's, it's
• 32:52
  a good. Intermittent fasting.
• 32:55
  That's exactly what it is. Popular diet or.
• 32:57
  It's very popular intermittent fasting and and it's it's it's
• 33:00
  similar to that, but something that we can that's reasonable
• 33:04
  that we could strive through throughout all of land with
• 33:07
  having habitual fasting. You, you will always be
• 33:10
  strengthening your prayer and you'll always be focusing on
• 33:13
  what's most important. And so for, especially for men
• 33:17
  who are going to be entering into a way of celibacy, fasting
• 33:24
  has to be there. If you're if, if you're not able
• 33:27
  to to fast and to pray, you're not going to be able to keep
• 33:33
  your vows and and and and be chased.
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  off your order. Is is there with fasting is
• 34:35
  there, as I said, always let's not have a meal or let's not
• 34:39
  have it. I know some people say we give
• 34:41
  up chocolate for lunch as an example, but what are the
• 34:43
  different kinds of fasting that are?
• 34:46
  And then there's also abstinence.
• 34:48
  And what's the difference between fasting and abstinence?
• 34:50
  Yeah, So we could just broadly define fasting as the
• 34:55
  penitential practice of limiting one's food and drink, full stop.
• 35:00
  We make an analogy to like a media fast or, or to other types
• 35:06
  of fasting where we say no to something like social media or,
• 35:12
  you know, my use of, of the computer or whatever it might
• 35:16
  be. But strictly speaking, fasting
• 35:20
  has to do with limiting the amount of food and drink you
• 35:23
  have just because it is so essential to our life and to our
• 35:28
  well-being. So if we are, if we're being
• 35:33
  careful, fasting really touches upon food and water or food and
• 35:39
  drink. But from that, from that, we
• 35:44
  could just broadly put that as the genus, there's various
• 35:47
  species of, of, of fasting. So we have an ecclesiastical
• 35:52
  fast that's specifically in reference to the type of fasting
• 35:57
  that every Catholic is expected to make from 18 to 59 in the
• 36:05
  Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
• 36:07
  We're bound under pain of sin to fast on those two days on Ash
• 36:12
  Wednesday and Good Friday. And that means that we can only
• 36:16
  take one main meal of the day and two other smaller collations
• 36:21
  to subsidize that that one main meal.
• 36:24
  And those two little meals can't add up to the the bigger
• 36:29
  principal meal that we have. So that's, that's one type of
• 36:34
  fast you can talk about the monastic fast.
• 36:36
  And so all the ancient monks of old would only ever eat once son
• 36:44
  sundown was. So we're very similar like that
• 36:46
  at the monastery that we keep the monastic fast.
• 36:48
  We generally only eat at as at dinner when it's the main meal.
• 36:55
  You can have a black fast, which is simply just going on water
• 37:02
  alone. And there's plenty of conferers
• 37:05
  that do that. And not to be salacious or
• 37:08
  anything like that, but I'm there are individual conferers
• 37:12
  that have gone 4070 days on just water. 70 days on just water,
• 37:19
  yeah. Why 70?
• 37:22
  He was literally just trying to see how far he could go.
• 37:27
  But and how much weight he could lose there?
• 37:29
  Yeah, I mean was. He OK after 70 days.
• 37:32
  That's why. Far more than the Lord our Lord
• 37:34
  did. Yeah, and you can read about
• 37:37
  these a lot of the craziest exploits in in the lives of the
• 37:41
  Desert Fathers. It's not.
• 37:42
  It's not. And David Blaine.
• 37:45
  And David, probably David. The Magician.
• 37:47
  See, that's the thing, like you could, you can do this with the
• 37:50
  power of the devil. There's no do.
• 37:52
  It for entertainment. Do it for entertainment.
• 37:54
  Or for God. You can do it for God.
• 37:56
  There's even secular people. Well, I, I, I remember seeing a
• 37:58
  story of an NFL football player who, who lost over £100 on a 40
• 38:03
  day water fast and motivated. He's probably was spiritually
• 38:08
  motivated. But there's, there's people
• 38:11
  outside the monastery that, that will, will do these sorts of
• 38:15
  things. But once again, the, the point
• 38:18
  of that is, is not for like the shock value or anything like
• 38:22
  that. It's, it's, there's a real
• 38:24
  spiritual benefit to doing that, that that's undeniable.
• 38:31
  And so, but yeah, that what that process looks like for a
• 38:36
  prolonged fast, like a prolonged black fast.
• 38:39
  By day three, your body starts to go into Kytosis, starts to
• 38:45
  eat fat. So your fat, it's your body
• 38:50
  starts to tap into your fat reserves and and it'll keep on
• 38:53
  eating that when you start to starve to death, that's when
• 38:56
  you're like losing muscle and stuff like that.
• 38:59
  But you can also, but the other interesting fact about that
• 39:05
  about a black fast, especially prolonged when the other cells
• 39:08
  that get eaten are cancer cells. So there's actually some
• 39:12
  research, you know, coming out about how fasting can help with
• 39:17
  cancer or keeping you cancer free.
• 39:20
  So there's, there's the body basically is feeding on itself.
• 39:24
  And, and you'd be surprised how how long a human body can, can
• 39:27
  go on just on, on just the fat cells that it, that it has.
• 39:31
  So, but that's a, that's a little bit more like I was
• 39:34
  saying, salacious aspect of fasting.
• 39:37
  We, we wanted as Christians and Catholics, more often than not
• 39:42
  shoot for a happy medium and, and, and be able to kind of hit
• 39:45
  the golden mean with, with something like that, but.
• 39:50
  That begs another question because I wanted to ask about
• 39:52
  maybe temperance and then also prudence when it comes to
• 39:55
  fasting. I know some people can get very
• 39:58
  zealous for the faith and want to go big or go home for God,
• 40:03
  you know, make big declarations and big commitments that might
• 40:06
  be hard to follow through on. So kind of that mentality of
• 40:10
  someone coming in passionately to say, I'm going to just only
• 40:14
  eat, you know, a leaf of bread or something.
• 40:16
  But then also people that. Because of complications, maybe
• 40:20
  they struggle with disordered eating.
• 40:22
  Unfortunately, there's a lot of people who do, you know,
• 40:26
  particularly I'm thinking, you know, young women struggling
• 40:28
  with anorexia or bulimia, eating disorders, but young men
• 40:30
  struggle too in our culture, many.
• 40:32
  And then generally speaking, I think there can be a disordered
• 40:36
  relationship to food that we have, especially in such a food
• 40:39
  centric society. The, the overarching thing that
• 40:45
  we want to emphasize when it comes to fasting is prudence,
• 40:48
  which is the moderator of all virtues even of fasting.
• 40:52
  And so if there's like real physical or even psychological
• 40:57
  or mental health problems, we want to make sure that we're
• 41:02
  addressing those first and foremost before we ever say,
• 41:05
  well, I'm going to go on on a huge fast because just throwing
• 41:12
  caution to the wind like that is, is imprudent and you could
• 41:16
  damage your health. And if you don't know what
• 41:19
  you're doing when, if you get into a lot or large black fast,
• 41:22
  you can really damage your health.
• 41:25
  Like when you're coming off of a black fast, you you have to take
• 41:31
  like bone broth, like you can't just take solids right off the
• 41:33
  off the bat. Takes a little while to wean
• 41:36
  yourself off of off of the severe fast.
• 41:40
  And so that all that is to say, like those really extreme fast
• 41:45
  or, or really extreme commitments.
• 41:48
  First of all, the church isn't asking that of you.
• 41:51
  It's like, do you at least go to Sunday Mass?
• 41:54
  Do you frequent the sacraments? That's far more beneficial for
• 41:57
  your, for your spiritual good than than any amount of fasting
• 42:01
  will do. Making sure that you go to
• 42:03
  confession, you know, on, on on a monthly basis and, and go to
• 42:06
  daily Mass. That would be far more
• 42:09
  efficacious for your for your spiritual well-being than than
• 42:11
  anything that you could do of of your own own accord.
• 42:15
  It's it's a question of, you know what I'm doing and what
• 42:19
  Christ is doing through the sacraments.
• 42:20
  I'm going to take Christ acting through the sacraments every
• 42:23
  time when it comes to my spiritual health.
• 42:25
  He he's he's the doctor par excellence.
• 42:28
  And so we just went when it comes to those obscure, obscure
• 42:34
  fast, we have to be little, little cautious and and Andrea.
• 42:37
  And there's a good amount of pride that also hides behind
• 42:41
  that as well. So.
• 42:42
  What do you care? What do you mean by that?
• 42:45
  Oh, I mean. That there's pride that can
• 42:47
  sometimes hide behind these spiritual disciplines.
• 42:50
  Yeah, but obviously, I mean like every novice in our monastery
• 42:55
  right now, the religion Olympics is going on Saint Michael's
• 42:58
  Abbey and, and, and there's a lot of contenders, let me tell
• 43:02
  you. Who is the 70 day fast guy?
• 43:04
  I think IP won first place. First place in terms of the
• 43:08
  fast, anyway. He's he's he's he's a he will
• 43:11
  definitely meddle. Let me tell you, he is.
• 43:13
  He's top notch father Anonymous, but.
• 43:18
  I mean, if you're going to compete for something.
• 43:20
  Yeah, might as well. Instead of who could be the
• 43:22
  richest and have the fastest car, it's a bit there's a hole
• 43:25
  in it to it. That's true.
• 43:27
  But I, I think getting back to my example of, of the novices
• 43:31
  and seminarians who are fasting right now, they all have their
• 43:36
  own individualized personal fast that they're trying to keep
• 43:40
  throughout Lent. And you can basically be sitting
• 43:43
  there across, because we're sitting there every, for every
• 43:46
  meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• 43:48
  They're all in. All of our meals are in common.
• 43:49
  You have table reading that's being read to you.
• 43:52
  So we're, we're listening to holy things, listening to the
• 43:55
  rule of Saint Augustine, listening to Scripture.
• 43:57
  And most of the most the comforters are going to be
• 44:00
  sitting there with maybe like hot water or something like
• 44:05
  that. But there might be a novice or
• 44:08
  something or or two that will just like go up and like get an
• 44:11
  apple, come back, cut up that apple and, and, and you could be
• 44:15
  sitting there as an office and you're just like looking at him
• 44:17
  and you'd be like, you were the softest man alive.
• 44:20
  It's like, it's like, really, you need to eat at lunch.
• 44:23
  Like, what's the matter with you?
• 44:24
  And so that judgement of my confer judgement of my brother
• 44:28
  can immediately come into play. When you have a culture of
• 44:32
  fasting, there's pride that that's like situated right,
• 44:36
  right in there that that you have to be be careful about.
• 44:40
  And so whenever, if if fasting isn't leading me to come to the
• 44:45
  conclusion that I'm the worst of all sinners, then there's
• 44:48
  something wrong with your fasting.
• 44:50
  And so you really, really have to be spiritually aware and have
• 44:57
  a good self knowledge, soft knowledge.
• 44:59
  That is such a profound point and it I think it extends beyond
• 45:03
  fasting that if your spiritual practice isn't helping you see
• 45:07
  your own desperate need for Jesus Christ and you are the
• 45:11
  least among a least among the sinners, right Exactly.
• 45:14
  Then what is the spiritual practice, whether it's adoration
• 45:18
  or the study of, you know, the faith, whatever it might be,
• 45:22
  daily mass practice. If it if it's not having you,
• 45:28
  you know, go all the way back to the final Pew of the church and
• 45:31
  beating your breasts saying I, I am worst of all sinners, you
• 45:35
  know, then we we really have to look ourselves hard again in the
• 45:38
  mirror and probably more effectively look at our Lord
• 45:42
  Jesus Christ from the cross. So.
• 45:44
  How do you balance I am the worst of all sinners with I am a
• 45:47
  beloved and blessed daughter or son of God?
• 45:52
  You know, by nature, you know, I deserve the wrath of God by my
• 45:59
  mortal sins, by, by the fact that I was born in sin fact that
• 46:02
  you know, I, I was deprived of grace from, from the moment of
• 46:05
  my conception until I received the, the waters of baptism.
• 46:11
  It's only by God's grace and by God's continual love and mercy
• 46:17
  that we receive our true selves as beloved sons and daughters of
• 46:23
  God. And so we, we really have to, we
• 46:27
  do. It is always a balancing act of,
• 46:29
  of, of being able to just realize that anything, anything
• 46:34
  that I do is of my own accord apart from God's grace merits
• 46:42
  nothing. Everything that is good in God's
• 46:47
  eyes and happens is a result of his grace.
• 46:51
  St. Agustin has a, has a beautiful
• 46:52
  little saying that my merits are God's mercies.
• 46:58
  And so we can really cling to that and and hold that true and
• 47:03
  up to the light and that that really stands the test of time
• 47:06
  of everything any good I have any any merit to my to my name
• 47:12
  began was carried out and finished because of the work of
• 47:17
  our savior. So.
• 47:19
  Beautiful and and the reason for hope.
• 47:22
  Yeah, no, we're all, we're all sinners.
• 47:25
  We're, we're all just, you know, Mastan Damanata, San Agustin
• 47:30
  says. You know, we're, we're, we're
• 47:32
  all deserving of, of, of hell and, and, and the torments
• 47:37
  thereof, but by his grace, by his, by his love, we've been
• 47:43
  snatched from the fire. So that's, and that's, and we
• 47:46
  are really truly made sons and sons and daughters of God by, by
• 47:50
  our Lord and we are his brother. And that's, that's the great
• 47:54
  news of being a Catholic, of being a Christian wholesale.
• 47:59
  That's that's the whole whole thing.
• 48:02
  Some practical questions about Lent as we observe it as
• 48:06
  Catholics. Now I know that other within the
• 48:11
  evangelical or Protestant world, people are doing different
• 48:14
  iterations if they are observing Lent, but what are the
• 48:17
  requirements? You mentioned 18 to 59 for Ash
• 48:20
  Wednesday and Good Friday. For those two days, we're
• 48:24
  observing fasting and abstinence.
• 48:27
  So no meat and then one meal. 2 smaller meals that don't equal
• 48:30
  1. What about children?
• 48:32
  What about pregnant or breastfeeding women?
• 48:35
  I'm pregnant. Yes.
• 48:36
  So there's there's obvious exceptions for for those who are
• 48:41
  pregnant. Are we an exception?
• 48:43
  You are an exception and anybody who has medical conditions or
• 48:47
  anything like that, the church once again going to common
• 48:49
  sense, going to prudence are are exempt from from the fast.
• 48:54
  Now we are also called to abstain and abstinence sometimes
• 48:59
  gets confused with fasting, but abstinence is essentially just
• 49:04
  rejecting or not eating particular foods.
• 49:07
  Principally it's used with, with meat or, or fish, oil, wine, any
• 49:14
  dairy, all, all those different things have different
• 49:17
  enumerations of, of abstinence. Our Eastern Catholic brothers
• 49:22
  and, and, and the Orthodox, obviously they have a, have a
• 49:25
  very stricter rule of, of abstinence throughout,
• 49:28
  throughout Lent and they're, and they're practicing that for, for
• 49:33
  us as Catholics, yes, we're cold to fast on those two days, Ash
• 49:37
  Wednesday and, and Good Friday, but we're also called to abstain
• 49:40
  from meat on all the Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday and Good
• 49:44
  Friday. I have a question about this
• 49:46
  because good fried or not Good Friday for Lenten, you know,
• 49:51
  fish fries, the some of the parrot shows here in SoCal, they
• 49:55
  do the Lenten fish fry. And you know, I, I know families
• 49:59
  and I think I've probably done this in my family, but you have
• 50:02
  your salmon dinner, you know, on Friday or your shrimp scampi and
• 50:06
  it just doesn't feel, let's be honest, as so much of A fast, I
• 50:10
  mean, it's like a treat. So yeah, it it definitely can
• 50:13
  be. I don't see that as a bad thing
• 50:16
  necessarily. I I think we could we can just
• 50:19
  take the good and and run with it if.
• 50:22
  I know mercy from from our Lord at this church.
• 50:25
  It's I desire obedience and not sacrifice, saith the Lord.
• 50:30
  And so if, if we're regardless of what we're doing, as long as
• 50:34
  we're doing it out of obedience with, with true charity.
• 50:39
  Have a lobster? Have a have a lobster.
• 50:41
  Why not? I mean, if you can afford it,
• 50:43
  but the the the I I lived in a in at Saint Philip Mary's
• 50:50
  Seminary in Toronto and they they have a lot of Eastern
• 50:54
  Catholic seminarians. I would notice the cooking would
• 50:59
  get so much better actually during Lent when I was eating
• 51:02
  their Lenten fair because like a lot because they just the
• 51:06
  culture over time learns of ways to compensate even even for
• 51:11
  those deficits in the pallet. And so some of the best
• 51:16
  cookbooks that you can find are like orthodox monastic cookbooks
• 51:20
  for, for like Lenten seasons or, or the Eastern Eastern Catholics
• 51:25
  and, and they're a culinary Lenten fair.
• 51:29
  And it's, it's pretty remarkable.
• 51:30
  So also at the end of the day, you know, hunger is the best
• 51:36
  sauce. So you'll put also if you're, if
• 51:39
  you're honestly fasting on on on on Good Friday, you'll be
• 51:43
  looking forward to that fish fry and and there's nothing wrong
• 51:47
  with that. So we talked.
• 51:49
  We were talking about fasting. You went at the beginning of the
• 51:52
  conversation about feasting and we're anticipating Easter right
• 51:56
  now. Absolutely.
• 51:57
  And there's more days of Easter than there is of Lent.
• 52:01
  That's true. To celebrate Easter absolutely
• 52:03
  in the liturgical calendar, which is when I became Catholic
• 52:07
  and learned about some of these things that they're so beautiful
• 52:11
  that we get to celebrate more than we suffer.
• 52:13
  I mean, not that we're suffering, but you know what I'm
• 52:15
  saying? We that there's this time set
• 52:17
  aside to really celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and our
• 52:21
  the gift of salvation. Absolutely.
• 52:24
  Tell me a little more big picture, zooming out this idea
• 52:28
  of a liturgical camp calendar. What is that?
• 52:31
  Where did that come from? OK.
• 52:34
  And how much of that is fasting versus feasting?
• 52:39
  Well, the the liturgical calendar as we had it has has
• 52:44
  evolved right from the beginning from from the time of the
• 52:48
  apostles to our present day. But we've had principal
• 52:54
  celebrations throughout the year mark marking that, whether that
• 52:58
  be Easter, Epiphany used to be a much larger feast than than
• 53:03
  Christmas in the early church. What is Epiphany?
• 53:06
  Epiphany is the essentially the appearance of our Lord, His
• 53:13
  appearance to the three wise men and his His being made known to
• 53:20
  the Gentiles. As king.
• 53:22
  As King. And so we, we celebrate that
• 53:25
  the, the, the, because essentially Christmas was, was
• 53:31
  more properly known as as the, the birth of, yes, the birth of
• 53:38
  the Savior, but also our, our, our Lady's divine motherhood of
• 53:45
  her, of the greater celebration of her divine motherhood and her
• 53:49
  giving birth to the, to the Savior of celebrating the fact
• 53:53
  that she truly was a virgin before, during and after that
• 53:57
  birth of Christ. So it is kind of more of an
• 54:00
  enshrinement of the perpetual virginity of, of Mary than than
• 54:04
  even the birth of birth of Christ early on.
• 54:06
  So. That was the you're saying that
• 54:08
  was an early view of the church, the early church.
• 54:12
  So we're talking a few 100 years post Jesus establishing the
• 54:17
  early Christendom. Was these this view of Christmas
• 54:21
  as yes, the birth of Jesus, but really about Mary?
• 54:24
  Yeah, absolutely. And her role not just as mother,
• 54:26
  but as a virgin mother. Yes, so, and then that was kind
• 54:30
  of the celebration of, of the birth of the fact that the
• 54:34
  miraculous birth of Christ. But then you have these these
• 54:38
  principal times like Easter and and Christmas and Epiphany and
• 54:43
  Pentecost and, and they're all punctuating the whole year.
• 54:48
  And then you have built into that the different change of the
• 54:51
  season. So even as early as the 2nd
• 54:53
  century, you have amber days and you have a state like the
• 54:58
  stational days within, within the Christian calendar coming,
• 55:02
  coming to four. And based on especially the
• 55:07
  first day of the week, Sunday being being the most important
• 55:10
  day and celebrated as the the day of our Lord's resurrection.
• 55:15
  You, you have a slowly but surely a calendar that's that's
• 55:21
  builds around a lot of these principal feasts.
• 55:24
  And then the other time gets marked out as as like time after
• 55:28
  Pentecost or preparation. So Advent or Lent or time after
• 55:34
  Epiphany, all these ancient big Christian feasts become the way
• 55:42
  in which the rest of the the liturgical year gets gets and
• 55:46
  divided up. And so you have a few different
• 55:52
  penitential seasons within the Catholic Catholic faith,
• 55:55
  especially during Advent and Lent.
• 55:59
  Those are the two big ones, but there are other fasts throughout
• 56:05
  the year and especially in the for the Eastern Catholics of the
• 56:09
  fast of Jonah for their. Fast of Jonah is that for the
• 56:14
  evils of Nineveh? Yeah, so that they sack.
• 56:18
  Yeah, exactly. No.
• 56:20
  When is that for the Eastern Catholics?
• 56:23
  You're putting me on the spot. You don't do the fast of Jonah
• 56:26
  DI don't. No the fast of Daniel either.
• 56:30
  It kind of eludes me, but. Now I hear a lot of evangelicals
• 56:33
  talking about Daniel Fast. Yes.
• 56:35
  And so the the fast of Daniel, it's recorded in in in the book
• 56:39
  of Daniel that he abstained from sweets and wine and oil and he
• 56:44
  did that for 21 days. And so there's a lot of.
• 56:48
  In preparation for what? He was preparing.
• 56:53
  He was to. Meet the Lion.
• 56:55
  Yeah, pretty much for his for his ministry and, and as a
• 56:59
  prophet. But he also within the in the
• 57:05
  Roman Catholic, there was there was a big feast day before the
• 57:08
  assumption on August 15th as well.
• 57:10
  There's traditionally a feast of two weeks before before the
• 57:13
  assumption of Our Lady, but those are kind of a bit more
• 57:19
  newer feasts that we haven't. But the more ancient ones of
• 57:23
  Lent and of of Advent are, are pretty, pretty well established.
• 57:30
  If we really want to see like the earliest document on on
• 57:34
  Christian fasting, you can go what back to the DDK which is
• 57:39
  our 1st century document talking about how Christians always fast
• 57:43
  on Wednesday and Friday to from. What?
• 57:47
  From all food? Yeah, one meal a day.
• 57:49
  Where they OK? It's it's, it's a little
• 57:51
  ambiguous as to what what was principally given, given there
• 57:55
  as the fast day, but what constituted their fast.
• 58:00
  But we knew that Christians fasted on Wednesday and Friday
• 58:04
  out of in reparation for the betrayal of Jesus on Wednesday
• 58:08
  on spy Wednesday and for the death of the Savior, obviously
• 58:11
  on Friday. And so that it was called the
• 58:14
  stational fast and those station that was practiced throughout,
• 58:21
  throughout east and West. What I find so fascinating,
• 58:25
  fascinating about the Didique is that you have this kind of
• 58:28
  prescription for how to live as Christians, and it has the very
• 58:32
  clear prohibition against abortion and contraceptives.
• 58:36
  Like you have these very strong moral guidelines that are
• 58:39
  provided. But when you mention that about
• 58:42
  fasting, you know, we don't even as Catholics, Roman Catholics,
• 58:45
  we don't. We're not required to fast on
• 58:48
  Wednesdays, as an example. And some dioceses, I think the
• 58:52
  Friday fast during the whole year is pretty.
• 58:56
  I mean, you can do it, but you're not required to fast
• 58:59
  outside of the season of Lent on Fridays in many dioceses.
• 59:03
  Yes, you're. That true?
• 59:06
  You're you're required to abstain from meat on on Fridays.
• 59:09
  Even outside of Lent. Even outside of Lent, unless
• 59:12
  it's a solemnity. So Sacred Heart of Jesus.
• 59:15
  But don't many bishops remove that?
• 59:19
  They requirement once again, we they they we this is we in a
• 59:24
  Catholic world. We just are just so accustomed
• 59:26
  to so many dispensations that we can keep we can't even keep keep
• 59:30
  track of it. So what what a a Catholic
• 59:33
  Christian is obliged to do is is to outside of outside of the the
• 59:40
  regular penitential seasons on on an average Friday, you should
• 59:46
  abstain from meat. Now there's usually a
• 59:48
  normatively A dispensation given and that's across across all the
• 59:54
  United States that you can substitute that abstinence from
• 59:58
  meat with another penitential practice.
• 1:00:01
  Any penitential. Project any penitential project
• 1:00:04
  you can, you could say a rosary, you could say a Divine Mercy
• 1:00:08
  chaplet, but you had there's there's still an obligation
• 1:00:11
  there something to do something. And so we should it's sometimes
• 1:00:15
  it's just easier for for us as Catholics to, you know, set it
• 1:00:19
  and forget it. I'm always just going to avoid
• 1:00:22
  meat on Fridays. But there's there's real
• 1:00:26
  pastoral wisdom in in allowing for the dispensation to be able
• 1:00:29
  to say, well, maybe I accidentally ate meat or, you
• 1:00:32
  know, it's somebody's birthday and I don't want to offend the
• 1:00:35
  guests. Does that count as a feast?
• 1:00:38
  Someone's birthday. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:41
  Why not? OK, so in the liturgical
• 1:00:44
  calendar there can be special events that are personal that
• 1:00:48
  can not, you know, remove an obligation to.
• 1:00:51
  Fast yeah, I would just what once again it unless, unless
• 1:00:56
  the, the Friday on that day, you're celebrating a huge
• 1:01:02
  liturgical feast day like Our Lady's Assumption or it it's All
• 1:01:06
  Saints Day. Or like I said, if, if the
• 1:01:11
  Sacred Heart is one of the one that always falls on a Friday,
• 1:01:15
  it's a it's a good example. So you're always upstanding,
• 1:01:17
  you're always off the hook for those days because of, of the
• 1:01:21
  solemnity of, of the situation. So.
• 1:01:24
  I think about the Didacay and I think about what's happening
• 1:01:27
  during that time to Christians. Yeah.
• 1:01:31
  You know what what what century was the Didacay first found?
• 1:01:36
  Early, early first. Yeah, 1st century. 1st century,
• 1:01:38
  So we're talking persecutions have already been significant.
• 1:01:43
  Oh yes, and you know, you have the first.
• 1:01:45
  I don't know how many dozen popes, how many of them are
• 1:01:48
  killed or martyred. Yeah, the there's a steady
• 1:01:53
  stream of Pope martyrs into the, into the 2nd century.
• 1:01:58
  I I forget which which one was the first one to not get killed,
• 1:02:02
  but. Starting with the Saint Peter,
• 1:02:04
  yes. So you have all of this
• 1:02:06
  persecution, you have Christians kind of underground to some
• 1:02:09
  degree, but they're spreading the faith and they're living
• 1:02:13
  differently than the rest of the Roman Empire, both Jew and
• 1:02:16
  Gentile. They're living differently than
• 1:02:17
  their moral code. And so this idea of fasting, I
• 1:02:21
  mean, they're already kind of on the run.
• 1:02:23
  I mean, they are persona non grata in many ways and they are
• 1:02:27
  endangered themselves just by practicing their faith.
• 1:02:30
  So the fasting seems just like part of the, you know, military
• 1:02:34
  requirement of keeping up the the virtue that they needed to
• 1:02:38
  survive today. We don't, at least in the West.
• 1:02:43
  You know, there's certainly Christians being persecuted and
• 1:02:45
  martyred today worldwide, but in the West, we are pretty
• 1:02:51
  comfortable. Yeah, fat and comfortable.
• 1:02:54
  And we also don't seem to fast that much.
• 1:02:57
  Let's just be real. I mean, you guys are fasting a
• 1:02:59
  lot over at Saint Michael's Abbey.
• 1:03:00
  But, you know, American Catholics, Yeah, we do some
• 1:03:02
  fasting during Lent and, you know, then maybe we give up.
• 1:03:06
  I don't know what we would be giving up on Fridays if not meat
• 1:03:08
  outside of Lent. But maybe you don't have that
• 1:03:10
  extra big of ice cream, right. So, but do you think just kind
• 1:03:15
  of zooming out to the 100,000 foot view, do you think that the
• 1:03:19
  Church, especially the Western Church for us to be Saints in a
• 1:03:25
  such a cushy world for ourselves that we are that fasting needs
• 1:03:30
  to become more prevalent? Absolutely.
• 1:03:35
  I, I think we can look to our Eastern brothers and see the
• 1:03:41
  discipline that they have. And then we look to the West of
• 1:03:44
  us Latin Catholics and say we need to step up our game.
• 1:03:49
  Wherever you have serious Christianity, you're going to
• 1:03:52
  have serious fasting. And those two things go together
• 1:03:57
  and you can't separate them. And so I think people are really
• 1:04:02
  wanting that. They really want a challenge
• 1:04:05
  when they practice their faith. And fasting is a great way to
• 1:04:08
  test yourself and to and to give yourself to our Lord in a, in a
• 1:04:13
  way that you otherwise wouldn't be able to give him to give
• 1:04:15
  yourself to him. And that's a it's, it's a real
• 1:04:20
  religion. It's a real bodily corporal
• 1:04:24
  religion that we want to live that requires like a real
• 1:04:28
  masculinity, a real femininity to, to live out.
• 1:04:33
  We don't want soft soap religion anymore.
• 1:04:37
  Let's just get real. Like, like I'm nobody's nobody's
• 1:04:41
  going to be going to the Catholic churches just because,
• 1:04:44
  you know, my parents did anymore.
• 1:04:46
  We like the the boomer generation is, as it peers out,
• 1:04:51
  didn't leave like a wake of of very, very convinced Catholics.
• 1:04:58
  Now they were kind of coasting on the cultural fumes of their
• 1:05:01
  day. But if we're going to be Roman
• 1:05:04
  Catholics today, we're going to be decidedly so.
• 1:05:08
  And we're going to have to be truly committed to our faith and
• 1:05:12
  live it with a real rigor and desire and zeal and a real
• 1:05:18
  charity for the Lord if we're going to, if we're going to
• 1:05:21
  really make something of the church and ourselves, We really
• 1:05:27
  do have to fast and pray and do this for the great greater glory
• 1:05:31
  of God and for the love of our Savior.
• 1:05:33
  If we're, if we're going to, if this, if our faith is going to
• 1:05:37
  mean anything. Any practical tips you can leave
• 1:05:41
  us with about how to get into the penitential spirit and fast?
• 1:05:48
  Stop eating, just put the bag of Doritos down.
• 1:05:53
  You're going to be fine. Just well.
• 1:05:59
  I think the church in her wisdom sets out at the at the beginning
• 1:06:04
  with Ash Wednesday with a AA3 fold call of fasting, prayer and
• 1:06:12
  almsgiving. And the three of these make a a
• 1:06:15
  strong chord. And so we can use those other
• 1:06:19
  two things of almsgiving and prayer to also bolster our
• 1:06:24
  fasting. So if we are are giving
• 1:06:26
  ourselves over to prayer, pray for the ability to fast.
• 1:06:32
  If you are giving, if you are going to make alms, make the
• 1:06:37
  alms about something that you would otherwise spend on
• 1:06:40
  yourself or are used to indulge on yourself.
• 1:06:43
  And that way you can use the other spiritual dimensions of
• 1:06:47
  Lent, those other prayer and almsgiving to help bolster your,
• 1:06:52
  your fasting. If that's the thing that you're,
• 1:06:54
  you're struggling with. And that was part of the reason
• 1:06:59
  for especially when food was scarce and there wasn't, when
• 1:07:03
  you actually gave up food, you were actually helping somebody
• 1:07:06
  else. That was an actual charity that
• 1:07:08
  you now have something to give in alms to, to somebody else.
• 1:07:12
  We, we don't live in, in a world really where that, where we're,
• 1:07:17
  we're all like, you know, starving and, and, and, and
• 1:07:21
  looking for that next caloric intake to be able to just
• 1:07:24
  continue on living. But we can still use the, the
• 1:07:27
  science and the spiritual science of that to, to help
• 1:07:30
  bolster our fasting. So I think if, if we if we lean
• 1:07:33
  on those two other things, we can find ourselves fasting a
• 1:07:36
  little bit more too. Beautiful Father Peter Adrian,
• 1:07:40
  where can people learn more about how to fast from Saint
• 1:07:43
  Michael's Abbey? Well, if you'd like to join our
• 1:07:46
  Lenten program, you can go to theabbottscircle.com and you can
• 1:07:51
  subscribe for our Lenten program there.
• 1:07:54
  It's called the Great Fast. You just have to punch in your
• 1:07:57
  e-mail and you'll get regular emails everyday from from my
• 1:08:02
  conference on fasting and how that's applicable within the
• 1:08:07
  liturgical season right now. And so there's a lot of sagely
• 1:08:10
  advice there that you can glean from, but that's the
• 1:08:13
  avidcircle.com. Awesome.
• 1:08:16
  Thank you so much for the father, Peter, Adrian.
• 1:08:18
  Thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:08:19
  It's awesome. Great.
• 1:08:21
  Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose
• 1:08:23
  Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe if you
• 1:08:25
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• 1:08:28
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• 1:08:31
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• 1:08:34
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