Fasting, Abstinence, and the Measure of Faith

By David G. Bonagura, Jr. ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 21, 2025

In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly challenged His disciples to subordinate all their earthly desires to their love of Him. To the rich young man seeking how to inherit eternal life, Jesus commanded, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). To a man wishing to follow Jesus upon saying goodbye to his family, Jesus responded, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). To the twelve apostles, Jesus instructed, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37).

Through the Church, our Lord issues a similar call to us each Lent: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 16:24-25).

The Church commands three acts of self-denial in Lent: fasting, abstinence, and almsgiving. Despite Vatican II’s exhortation in Sacrosanctum Concilium that “[d]uring Lent penance should not be only internal and individual, but also external and social,” the latter pair has essentially ceased to exist other than two fast days, which themselves are so lax (three meals are allowed; only those aged 18-59 must participate) that Christians of the first millennium, for whom fasting meant a single meal in the evening, would mock us.

Individual Catholics, then, must choose their own acts of self-denial according to their personal discernment. How should they choose? Following our Lord’s challenges to His disciples, whatever they do must show that they love Him more than the things of this world.

This does not mean that Catholics must make preposterous or super-human sacrifices: they need not climb Kilimanjaro, nor cease from eating for days at a time, nor give away all their savings to charity. Our Lord praised the widow’s mite not for its quantity but for its quality: the woman gave what was dear to her. At His presentation, our Lord’s own parents brought the offering of the poor: a pair of turtle doves or two pigeons. Moreover, penances that exceed our abilities can harm more than help by making us more self-centered rather than less.

Though eschewing the issuance of specific commands concerning what we should sacrifice, the Church clearly communicates what our sacrifices are supposed to do for us through the Mass propers for Lent. Consider a few examples:

• Preface IV of Lent: “For through bodily fasting you restrain our faults, raise up our minds, and bestow both virtue and its rewards.”
• Prayer after Communion, First Tuesday of Lent: “Grant us through these mysteries, Lord, that by moderating earthly desires we may learn to love the things of heaven.”
• Collect of the Second Friday of Lent: “Grant, we pray, almighty God, that, purifying us by the sacred practice of penance, you may lead us in sincerity of heart to attain the holy things to come.”

In Lent we perform acts of self-denial—fasting, abstinence, almsgiving—to restrain our earthly desires so we can instead fill ourselves with heavenly ones. Lent calls us to kenosis, self-emptying, not as an end in itself, but as a means to reaching God, who knows well that our earthly desires distract, that is, drag us away, from Him who surpasses all bodily and human loves. For Christ to increase in us, earthly desires must decrease.

The question, then, is what, specifically, should we sacrifice to reach these spiritual heights. Since mandated 40-day fasting (well, the modern refashioning of fasting to the point that it could pejoratively be called “fasting”) ceased in the 1960s, the pious custom of “giving something up for Lent” has taken its place. What we give up, or abstain from, need not only be food items: abstinence from modern technologies or comforts can be just as effective a sacrifice as abstinence from meat or other foods. Though not fasting in the strict sense, emptying ourselves of the superfluous distractions of our age can allow the soul to soar.

The key for Catholics is to find some reasonable things, be they coffee, booze, certain foods, music, entertainment, luxuries, that are dear to us and renounce their use for Lent. Our willingness to do so is a measure of how much we love our Lord.

Yet our willingness to keep these resolutions during the inevitable temptations to acquiesce is the real measure of our faith. It’s a phenomenon of the spiritual life that even the smallest thing we give up will spike violent tempests within us. Occasions of temptation abound: work events, birthday parties, and general rationalizing provide easy excuses to break our Lenten resolutions. When the devil knocks with temptation, St. Peter urges us to “resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Pt 5:9). Each time we succeed by persevering in suffering, we give our Lord a silent testimony of our love for Him.

“The measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt 7:2). So Jesus warns in the context of judging others while giving ourselves a pass. Yet the promise applies to the spiritual life and to Lenten practices: what we are willing to give to God we will receive in return—thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. As we trudge through Lent, it is never too late to push toward that one superfluous thing we love and tell ourselves we cannot do without. Our willingness to sacrifice it can serve as a current measure of our faith: Do we love God more than this thing? As we discern, that sage spiritual advice should be in the front of our minds: God cannot be outdone in generosity.

David G. Bonagura, Jr. is an adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary and Catholic International University. He is the author of 100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today, and the translator of Jerome”s Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning. He serves as the religion editor of The University Bookman, a review of books founded in 1960 by Russell Kirk. See full bio.

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