WOODSIDE — For many Christians during Lent, fasting is often a grudging afterthought: smaller meals on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, no meat on Fridays.
The idea of fasting, along with prayer and almsgiving, is to repent and grow in faith. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops defines a day of fasting as eating one full meal and two smaller meals, which together don’t make another full meal.
Physical hunger is a way of preparing oneself to share more fully in the suffering, death and Resurrection of Jesus.
Father Henry Torres, the parochial vicar at St. Sebastian’s Church in Woodside, said fasting is “a complete giving of oneself”…
The rest of this article can be found exclusively in the Feb. 29 printed version of The Tablet. You can buy it at church for $1, or you can receive future editions of the paper in your mailbox at a discounted rate by subscribing here. Thank you for supporting Catholic journalism.