Fasting for Peace
2 March 2022
Today, gentle reader, we begin the holy season of Lent. Ash Wednesday this year is especially poignant, in that we are called by our Holy Father, Pope Francis, to offer our prayers and fasting today for peace in Ukraine. Ash Wednesday is one of only two official days of fasting in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. According to the law of fasting, we are allowed one full meatless meal. We may take two smaller meatless meals to maintain strength and health, but if they were put together, they should not equal a full meal. In addition, snacking in-between meals is not allowed.
It's only two days out of a year, but, gentle reader, oh how we bemoan it. Fasting is an ancient, pre-Christian tradition. Pagans practiced it; Jews practiced it; and some still do. It is a spiritual practice to help us physically know that there is more to life than just this mortal life. It is there to draw our minds and hearts to attend to our spiritual hunger, and to perfect our love of God and neighbour. It can also be an act of solidarity with our hungry brothers and sisters throughout the world. Christ Himself practiced it. We hear Him reference it in regards to casting out some evil spirits when He says that "some can only be cast out by prayer and fasting."Mt. 17:21.
The scourge of war is not of God, it is the fruit of Satan. Today's fasting is set before us as a tool to drive the evil of hatred and division from our hearts and minds, and those of others. This is no little thing we do, gentle reader. We engage in combat with the Father of Lies, fortified and armed with the grace of Christ, who has conquered him, and are aided by the prayers of the saints and angels of heaven, before whom Satan trembles. It may seem as if our fasting is a private thing, but it is not. We do it together as a Church, the living, mystical Body of Christ.
I am certain that we all want peace, not only for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, but for all, including the Russian people, many of whom are opposed to this immoral and illegal war. As we feel the pangs of hunger today, remember the refugees fleeing their homes and beloved country, not knowing if or when they can return. Remember in prayer those who have welcomed them into their midst and now are tending to their spiritual and physical needs. Remember those who remain, huddled in cellars, shelters, and metro tunnels. Remember those who fight, not knowing if they will live through the day. Prayerfully remember those who have lost their lives in this insane violence, especially the innocent civilians. Dear and gentle reader, what we do today can and will help them in ways we cannot see or know in this life.
On this day when we hunger, knowing full well that we can assuage it after midnight, it would behoove us, gentle reader, to remember the Holodomor of 1932-33, in which 3.9 millions of Ukrainians died of starvation, millions of others were "resettled" by force by Soviet authorities in sparsely populated areas of the USSR, and millions of children who were born to those who survived, were born with birth defects. It was Stalin's way of ensuring that the Ukrainian people would never again rise in revolt against the authority of the USSR. The Holodomor is seen as an act of genocide, since it was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian people, and the "famine" was due to man-made factors such as the elimination of the kulaks (property-owing peasants), millions of whom were arrested, resettled, jailed, or executed; combined with the forced collectivisation of Ukrainian farms. Most of us know of the so-called "Irish potato famine", or the Great Hunger as it is called in Ireland, in which a blight effected years of potato harvests, the staple for the landless Irish peasantry, leading to a million deaths, and millions emigrating to other countries. I doubt that most people here in the USA have ever heard of the Holodomor.
This tragic event, and hundreds of years of struggle against foreign domination still live in the memory of Ukraine and her people. It is little wonder, gentle reader, that they are putting up such stiff resistance to Putin's aggression. He most certainly thought that his invasion would be easy. It has not been. He presumed that his superior numbers would overwhelm the smaller Ukrainian forces. It has not. He thought the West would sit by idly and merely "tut-tut" his war. They have not. Putin is now in panic mode, since he knows that the success or failure of this insane war could very well determine his future as the autocrat of Russia. Thus, he has brought the threat of nuclear war to the table. All the more reason to fast, gentle reader, and drive this malicious demon of indiscriminate death out.
We ask our Lord, Christ the Prince of Peace to have mercy on us, and especially on the Ukrainians. We ask the powerful intercession of Our Lady, Mother of Mercy and Queen of Peace to pray for us all. And, we place ourselves under the protection of St. Joseph, the Terror of Demons, that as he protected the Holy Family, so now, he will protect us, and those for whom we pray.
It is a terrifying way to begin this holy season, dear and gentle reader, but here we are. We must make the most of this time, for our sake, and for the sake of our wounded world.
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us!
God bless and keep you safe, and Slava Ukraini!
In Christ,
Father P.
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