Half a Cucumber
Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!
Isaiah 58, 4
My father was an Italian chef and so food was always important in our family. I blame this for my lack of discipline when it comes to fasting! Today’s readings reflect on the subject of fasting and what its objectives are. Some years ago, fasting, or perhaps extreme abstinence, was forced upon me when I was sent on a retreat to a Trappist monastery in Rome. To make it worse I arrived on Ash Wednesday; I had no choice but to experience a concentrated version of it. I remember a fellow retreatant waiting in ever-weakening hope, after the watery soup (no bread), for the main course to arrive. It never did.
I was annoyed and resentful that I had to take the day as seriously as the monks were taking it. Sure I was already a friar on the way to becoming a priest, but easy does it, I thought! The lack of choice eventually made me surrender to my situation though and slowly I began to accept it and even feel a sense of liberation.
Anthony Bloom, a former metropolitan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, also had an experience of forced abstinence. He and a friend were invited to a party as teenagers. They missed the train and so arrived when all the food had been eaten, apart from half a cucumber. His friend surprised him with his spiritual maturity. Rather than complain he said, let’s say Grace and give thanks to God for this half-cucumber. Anthony, on hearing his friend’s prayer, suddenly saw things through his friend’s appreciative eyes. It was the tastiest cucumber he ever had!
A reflection written by Gianni Notarianni O.S.A., Parish Priest of St Augustine's Hammersmith, London and Director of Austin Forum
Follow the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.), Province of England and Scotland
Thank you! 116 people prayed
2 comments
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone. Col 4:6