Christ Himself fasted forty days, and He did not say *if* you fast but *when* you fast · the Church has always understood fasting as part of the ordinary Christian life, not an extra for the zealous. We do not fast to earn God's love, which is already given, nor to punish the body, which is His good creation. We fast to be set free.
A soul ruled by its appetites is not free. The small, chosen hunger of the fast loosens that grip and teaches the will to say no to itself, so that it may more fully say yes to God. What we deny ourselves at the table we give to the poor, and so the fast becomes mercy. And the whole Church fasts together, as one body, making ready to meet the feast. Fasting, then, is for freedom, for the love of neighbor, and for God · never for its own sake.