COALED LIPS on fire
“ … live coal…has touched.. lips…“
Isaiah 6
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Nihil Obstat
Rev. Fr. Stephen Una
Catholic Diocese of Abakaliki
Assisting Chaplain, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Dodan Barracks, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
FAST TO LIVE, NOT DIE
Hello! Third Sunday of Lent already? Wow, already in the heat and thick of it.
It’s really all about sacrifice, isn’t it. I hope we are all coping with the personal choices made to keep up with the demands of it, after all, its a personal decision; the way, manner and level at which to key into the standard hoisted by the church in this period.
Yes, Lent is truly a period for sacrifice but we have to take out time to ask what, amid the general Lenten effort, this sacrifice means to us, what it entails , demands and how it impacts on us PERSONALLY afterall, at the end of the day, it becomes a personal race.
On the empirical level, some things are noticeable already; some reduction in weight – though not yet with that weariness which comes from a more prolonged fast – and gaunt faces of even the hardest of men, those that don’t usually want to hear, when it comes to spirituality.
Bro. Ogbeche, well done o. Was it my imagination or did I see someone pulling up belted up trousers on what is sure to have likely become a slimmer waistline at the first Stations of the Cross on Friday just three days into Lent? Haba! No offence intended, just that I am wondering if that drastic drop in weight even though healthful for some, is based on the one major meal day fast recommended by the church or if it is due to a more rigid regimen of
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I must say, some people do not joke in anyway when it comes to religiosity as keeping such injunctions is like moinmoin to them. I thank God for them though, I mean, the effort alone takes a lot of courage and strength that can only find its source in God and.
Talking about thanking God, we should want to give thanks to Him for the opportunity of the season and hope it would be a rewarding one for us all; that we would all reap from the prayer, fasting and abstinence and almsgiving effort which we have embarked on with the extra ardor expected of us in this season. May His name be praised, both now and forever more, Amen.
As stated, undergoing these 40 Days is not easy, wetin! The sacrifice is really huge so it’d be good we took out time to consider its implications on us personally, that is, what it entails and how it impacts on our spirituality in real terms?
The Bible says everything offered to God must cost us something and Lenten practices being an offering to God, must be sacrificial, costing us sometimes without which they have little or no value.
So, sacrifice, the recurring value in our Lenten practices, essentially, is the giving up of something that is dear in order to gain a greater good.
Traditionally, the following readily come to mind upon mention of the word, sacrifice, and all are vital that the absence of any of them makes the sacrificial goal unattainable, meaning sacrifice can’t be talked about once any one of the items is missing and for the purpose of this write-up, they’d be contextualised in the Christian world view:
The Propitiator
The offender asking for mercy; every human person by virtue of the fallen state of the Adamic heritage and who acknowledges there’s need to repair the Adamic fault so that humans can be raised from the current wretched existence and restored to eternal bliss as in the original creation plan.
However, by virtue of the Christian belief system, the human person has no capacity to propitiate because the inherited fallen nature of Adam renders him incapable of anything good, even things that would be to his own benefit, so even when the best of the lot (Abel) by his offended blood speaks to God, he unwittingly calls for vengeance not knowing that he himself is implicated by that call because he also carries the blood of Adam whose offence pollutes everything made and must be propitiated for to absolve everyone, even himself from the inherited sin.
Nevertheless, God Himself in Jesus, his most beloved son, free from the tainted blood had to come down at the fullness of time as human to ask for mercy and because Jesus is outside the Adamic bond by virtue of his divine nature raising up his human nature, born of a sinless virgin, the Adamic nature is ineffective in him and so he alone as human has the goodness of heart to ask for mercy and all other humans have to tap into his person to qualify and be able to do so.
The Priest
The one that offers the sacrifice on behalf of the propitiator and he might be the Priest himself or someone else but one thing is sure, for the priest to qualify to offer that sacrifice, he has to be initiated as a priest and then be pure himself at the point of offering the sacrifice and that is why in a case, where a priest is the offender, he either gets another priest or goes through the rights of purification before carrying out the rights of sacrifice. In the Christian world view, Christ himself is the High Priest because no human is qualified to perform the sacrifice of atonement because everyone has “…sinned and come short…”Romans 3:23 and so someone whose hands are clean and would not soil the offering is needed and that person is Christ, so no matter what anyone does and how much he tries, a self effort sacrifice is unacceptable unless it is made in union with that of Jesus whose overshadowing priestly power effectively purifies the sacrifice and that is why in the church, the human priest does not offer the sacrifice of the Mass, himself but stands in the person of Christ to do do.
The Victim
This main bone of the traditional notion of sacrifice. The sacrificial victim in virtually every world view MUST BE pure and spotless and usually a thing with blood. Now the necessity for the paschal (Christian) sacrifice is the cleansing of man’s blood soiled by the stain of sin. So soiled blood cannot cleanse soiled blood. It would only take the pure to do so, otherwise, it would be ineffective and that is where the sinless Christ, the God man, born of his virgin mother comes in. The breakdown of this possibility is for another discussion.
The Altar
This connotes the Crucifix on which the victim is given up. Ordinarily a sacrificial victim is placed on an altar, face up but in the case of Christ, as prophesied, he stands with arms outstretched in the surrender posture, and lifted up for all to see as in, John 12:32, he draws all men to himself in total surrender to God, the composite of the trinity of which he himself is the second person. So, nothing on earth is big enough to hold God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, maker and owner of the universe, even at the point when he humbly, in obedience to God the Father, shields his divinity and comes down to the level of humans to offer himself in propitiation for our sins.
Moreover, the sacrifice is for all time and for the whole universe which Adam tainted by his fall, so the altar must be big enough to hold the victim and that is why Jesus himself is the altar of sacrifice as typified by the Crucifix.
The Deity
The Christian idea is that God, the only true Deity gave up his only begotten son, the highest good, as victim on the alter of love so as to regain man, a lesser good.
This exchange which contradicts the essentials of the definition of sacrifice as above, is not known and not fully understood by those who know and that is where there’s a fault line is the faith of many.
Such fault line which makes faith tinder dry, stems from the fact that the human person, even though may mouth, can never truly and fully fathom the depth of the love that can go the extent of being short-changed for no just reason.
The Purpose
Moreover, the average human heart naturally considers itself the best of all things and with a self entitlement spirit thinks himself deserving of everything good that comes his way, until existential evidence proves otherwise and even at that, he thinks, in a never say die view, that he deserves a remedy to restore or upgrade him to where he thinks he should be. This remedy, even though undeserved, is what the Christian love of God brings. Consider: “For God so loved the world…” John 3:16 and “God loved us first…” 1st John 4:19 and “no greater love…” John 15:13
Bearing the above in mind, it becomes important to emphasise that the fruits that emanate from Christian sacrifice is totally independent of our efforts even though the efforts are required to key us into reaping them. So it’s not how hard we try but much rather depends on the acknowledgement that beyond the best of our efforts is something waiting at the other end to receive and reward what we have done and that thing is the love of God. Faith based works is key here.
The Goal of Lenten Fast
So, when people go the unimaginable extent that puts them in the light of wanting to be holier than the pope as in the example of trying to “kill” themselves with fasting during Lent, you just wonder. Here we aren’t talking about special purpose fasting, as in when Jesus said “…only prayer and fasting can do this”, in Mark 9, in respect of the healing of the boy with the demon. I actually had a sister, my beloved Felicia, who engaged in such high-end specific purpose tied type of fasting and I also did do such at a severe level once but in this, I refer to the communal Lent activity which mainly, is to draw us to a closer walk with God and I have come to see that many may not know what is actually required of them and as a result, some fast,
- in ignorance, not knowing the implications or perceived need but just to show they are Christian in tow of others
- In competition to show higher capacity for mortification and to gain the approval of men
- for vainglory, out of pride.
- as a means of socialising.
The above run contrary to the spirit of Lent as according to Wikipedia “Lent (Latin: Quadragesima,[1] ‘Fortieth’) is the solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year commemorating the 40 days Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.[2“
Thus, Lent is the period when Christians on yearly basis, undergo 40 Days without food in emulation of Jesus’ action before the start of his public ministry and the reason should be
to prepare and empower them against the temptation of the devil in the period and in their future life.
to prepare them individually and as a communal body in preparation for the yearly commemoration of Christ’s paschal mystery which they would want to meet in an acceptable spiritual state, a state of grace with God
to fortify them for their Christian walk in the following year up to the next lent.
It must be re-emphasised that Jesus’ fast for 40 Days has the main purpose of showing that through fast, we can overcome sin in all its ramification in the realms of body, soul and spirit and if done right, we can be empowered to do much more than we can conceive and also in our temporal, (earthly) needs as in the example of the Christ’s healing of the boy with palsy after the transfiguration. It must realised however, that the case of lent is an agreement walk (mainly for increase in spirituality) and as such, things should be done in unison, because in Amos 3:3, God says that two cannot walk together unless they are in agreement and I humbly believe this should be both in the essentials as well as in every material particular of Lent.
Fasting Mode
The Catholic church recommends for the Lenten Fast, One major meal a day and this commonsense wise, does not mean nothing else! Think of it, except when not at work which is not likely, anything less is likely to negatively impact temperament and/or worsen mood, thus affecting work, productivity and leading even if inadvertently to short-changing the employer.
So, the question is, would Jesus want the careless giving off of any sign of fasting much less for work to be affected by it! Of course not and neither would the Catholic Church which must have upon serious prayerful meditation, come to the decision of the best mode of fasting for the period taking into consideration the imperative of work which she preaches and the upholding of the principles of a good work for a fair wage and vice versa.
So, it may be concluded that for Lent, there’s no need for
0 0 1 (Thought to be the ideal fast mode)
Instead, a more appropriate regimen of should suffice.
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No extra effort needed but to reduce Two meals to the barest minimum or replace them with either a meal snack or fruit like Agbalumo or something light in order to remove the hunger bite and make you carry on as if you weren’t fasting as shown above.
A snack in place of a meal during Lent
Refresh with water, It helps
Water all the way is allowed, you don’t want to get dehydrated and find yourself on drip in hospital after fainting, the very water you were trying to avoid!
Importantly remember that dying from fasting is gross and amounts to suicide in a way and it leads to hell. However, if you insist on dieing at Lent, there’s a laudable option than from food fast and that is from sin fast and that actually does not kill.
The above leads us to the issue of other ways to fast because Christ actually mortified himself in other areas than in food.
It must be remembered that the spirit and the soul are influenced by bodily notification and because these matter more and are indeed more difficult to be subdued, the devil leaves them and first goes after the weak point; the body, creating a lee way with which to attack the higher composite parts of man as exemplified in the temptation of Jesus’ whose reply that man shall not live by bread alone, testifies to the fact that the bread (the body), though important has a lesser role to play in the scheme of things when it comes to humans. Thus, the body may die but the spirit and soul never do and that is why the catechism of the Catholic Church says we must take more care of our spirit because man is essentially spirit and though the body dies, the spirit does not.
However, we must still take care of our body, as Christ himself did while on earth, even though relatively lesser than we take care of the spirit because the body is the Spirit’s dwelling place and we should make it habitable both spiritually and materially.
So, for lent, you might have taken a decision to engage in a fast regimen that tantamount to wanting to die from fasting (that’s your choice) and it might just register in you being transformed in body to one of the above but rest assured that in Christianity, the only allowed form of self induced death (and everyone is actually urged to do it at Lent and indeed at every other time) is death to sin.
Now you can tell how to fast to live and not die
