On the 11th December last year the Holy Father published his message for Lent 2009. In it he encourages Catholics to fill fasting with meaning. “It is clear that fasting is good for our physical wellbeing, but for the faithful it is a “ therapy” for curing everything that stands in the way of doing God’s will”, writes Benedict XVl
The message for this years Lenten period includes a direct exhortation from the Pope to fast: “ I encourage parishes and other communities to intensify the practice of personal and community fasting during lent, at the same time as carefully listening to the Word of God, praying and giving alms”.
Saint Augustine
The Message is full of biblical phrases, quotations from the Fathers of the Church and references to encyclicals of the last Popes. Once more Augustinian doctrine occupies a major space in Benedict’s discourse:
“The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as ³twisted and tangled knottiness² (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: ³I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness² (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708).
Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God”.