Fasting vs. Abstinence: Most Catholics Get This Wrong (Fr Cristino)

What’s the difference between fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church—and why does it matter?

In this episode, Fr. Cristino joins us to clear up one of the most misunderstood Lenten practices. Many Catholics use the words fasting and abstinence interchangeably, but according to Catholic teaching, they mean two very different things.

Transcript

Father Cristino welcome back thank you good to have you on a Friday again for our Lenten series here today we're gonna continue with our thoughts on fasting we've spoke on self-denial we've crept a little bit into fasting in our previous conversations but let's do a little bit of a deeper dive into fasting and to begin with let's distinguish between two things fasting and abstinence right what are the differences yeah I think people equivocate those two words when I I hear sometimes people talking about that they're fasting from X Y or Zed uh you don't fast from anything except for food that's that is the strict definition of fasting abstinence means not doing something and it can mean a wide range of things in an election you can abstain from voting uh you can we we talk about during Lent abstaining from meat meaning that you don't eat meat on certain days of the week uh in in marital intimacy couples can have what they call times of periodic abstinence in marriage where they may not engage in intimacy so abstinence is a much broader category meaning choosing not to engage in or participate in something uh fasting as a as a much stricter definition that pertains to our intake of food specifically uh and the reason behind that is because food is one of the most fundamental parts of what it means for us to be human food and water if you don't drink water you're not going to live for very long if you don't eat food you'll live for longer but you'll still eventually die our body needs to be fed our body needs nutrients and so when we fast we're taking something vitally important literally vital because we can't live without it and saying "I'm going to deny myself the the normal intake of this uh for the sake of actually letting myself feel the the pain or the discomfort that one experiences when they don't have their normal intake of food so we need to not flip the terms back and forth and think that anything that you're not doing you can call that fasting from it you're not fasting from it you're abstaining from it fasting has to do with what you're eating so traditionally fasting always is associated with food restricting food in some way um do you think that we should all practice fasting as part of our discipline in our life i absolutely think we should I I guess I should qualify all because even the church in her laws about fasting defines ages and so those who are uh required to fast on the two prescribed days of fasting in the church's calendar Ash Wednesday and Good Friday uh only are required to do so if they have reached the age of 18 and are under the age of 60 now obviously someone who is younger than 18 can still fast they can choose to fast uh or older than 60 can choose to fast but it the the law that requires fasting from a Catholic on those two days of the year does not apply to people outside of those ages and I think the idea there being children are are it's more difficult for them to function properly if their intake of food is disturbed uh and maybe same once you're older maybe when you're older it's already seen that you're taking medications at certain times or that you maybe you're diabetic and so you have to be careful and whatever the reason is we realize that it's a lot to ask of a person to fast according to the strict definition of what fasting entails uh and so we do restrict it but anyone who can should take it up yeah it reminds me of uh St bonaventure echoed by St alas the gory suggesting there's three ways to fast through quality kind and manner quality would be uh how much you eat which is typically where our mind goes but the kind and manner often aren't and so the kind what he refers to is if you have food before you it's not that you don't eat it but you maybe take the worst your less desirable piece of that food or you like ketchup and on your burger and it's a Thursday you don't you love it but so now you're going to refrain from using ketchup so that's kind or a coffee you you like your coffee warm hot well you're going to choose to have it cold you don't like it that way so I do you think then in this respect most people can work it into their life and the reason why I'm saying this is I I've always thought it's in my mind critically important for people to advance in the spiritual life too fast if they can through through quality or the the the the amount quantity then they can through kind and the manner he says it's a secretive way so people don't see it publicly it's not and so there's a humility with it because when I think of fasting I think about Adam and Eve in the garden and when they fell and lost their relationship with God the great fall came through partially the pallet they ate something so the fall of man was associated with something touching the taste buds they tasted something and from that all disorder is connected to well initially the pallet mhm and so we have all these disorders in our lives of of the passions and we think well how can I re them in my thought well go back to where it began with the pallet yes there was pride there was an act of disobedience but it was also connected to the delight and the experience of of of tasting and so I'll get your reaction but I've never heard someone talk about it this way but it's just like if sin came this way isn't there a great value to come against those passions the lust the angers the impatience you know trying to figure out well how can I conquer this have you ever started with the pallet mhm what do you think i think you're absolutely on to something that in a certain sense you could say that Adam and Eve's fall had to do with a disordered attachment to food and what was disordered about it was that God had provided everything else for them right he said "You may eat of the fruit of all of these trees except for this one." So he had put a restriction on the manner in which they could eat and that provoked rebellion in them the the fact that they were somehow being restricted somehow something was being held back from them that began to provoke the questioning and that's how Satan used that restriction to to make them question God and his goodness and his generosity which is mindboggling to us now when we think about it but we also have that same tendency god blesses us in an abundance of ways most of which we don't ever think of or acknowledge uh and then if there's one way in which we feel not only not blessed but maybe even punished we become fixated on that mhm and so when we have a disordered attachment to something the only way that we can put it into proper order is by freely choosing to deny it of ourselves somehow uh and food is fundamental you've had many children in your home uh when a baby starts crying the first thing that mom does is go to nurse him or her because you assume that the first thing that's the matter with them is that they're hungry the minute that their stomach tells them that in their brain that it needs to be fed they don't have any other way of communicating except to cry uh and then as soon as they start to get that milk they're happy and usually that's all it takes to calm them down afterwards if it doesn't then okay you start running through the other checklist do they need to be changed do they need to be swaddled whatever we don't ever really break ourselves out of that tendency we will continue throughout when you're a toddler and even up until whenever you finally learn some discipline that you can't just eat whatever you want when you want it i that's why parents are very careful about when they introduce sugar to their children because the sugary foods now that's the only thing they're going to want to eat anything else that doesn't taste like this I don't want it then uh even you know trying to get them to eat their vegetables before they start to have fruit because the sweetness of that fruit is going to make them say they never want to have the vegetables but we know that they need them these are these are ways in which we try to train ourselves to have an ordered use of food and because it's so abundant and it's just always there and around us uh in our uh fortunate case there are many people in the world for whom that is not the case we have to train ourselves to have a disciplined approach towards it because otherwise left to our own devices we will always have a disordered attachment to how and when and what we eat mhm um focusing now specifically on Lent uh floating on the internet um actually on the US bishop's website there was uh fasting according to Pope Francis and I want to read what he says regarding fasting fast from hurting words and say kind words fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude fast from anger and be filled with patience fast from pessimism and be filled with hope fast from worry and have trust in God fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity fast from pressure and be prayerful fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy i think going back to our previous conversation our earlier conversation um maybe a better word to say is instead of fast abstain because traditionally we understand fasting as from food cuz and I've seen this and this is why I wanted to bring up this list because people will use it as a justification for well I don't need to give up food this Lent because I'm fasting from uh bitterness right and the problem with that mindset and you can correct me if I'm wrong but if you fast from bitterness well you can pick it up after Lent's done so I'm going to give it up for Lent but then I'm going to pick it up after right where no you you don't fast from sin you shouldn't sin Right cuz cuz bitterness is sinful it's a can be deep-seated in our life mhm so I I think to your point and you weren't referring to this list but now I am it's a much better description to say abstain from these things but I don't think we should use this list as a justification for well now I don't need to fast from food though these are my thoughts yeah what What do you think well no I agree with you i mean I don't mean to disregard or or or disagree with what the Holy Father's sentiments are there he's clearly trying to say "How about you put away some of these things that you ought not have and take something in that void that you should have." That's the that's the whole point behind all forms of self-denial is that the void of the thing be filled with something that is superior so that is fundamentally what he's getting at in that list i if you want to get into semantics I think the wrong word is being used because as I said we fast from food not from other things and we certainly don't pat ourselves on the back for abstaining from sin some of the things on the list are sinful just just don't do that put it away put it out of your life you know we we're not uh that's not an option we have to try and get rid of some of these things so in Lent if we think that I've given up a bad practice or a bad habit that I shouldn't have well that's good and if Lent was the motivation for you to get rid of it excellent but to imagine that it therefore could replace other forms of self-denial that are either recommended or proposed or or or even prescribed for us like the fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday mhm you cannot replace those things and the fact that our mother the church only asks us to fast 2 days out of 365 I think suggests not much is being asked of us and when not much is being asked of us but what is being asked is important the signal is we should be taking that up on our own we should be trying to do that more for our own sake uh in Exodus 90 uh as I've referred to earlier I am grateful that one of the things that we are made to do is fast on Wednesdays and Fridays as part of the disciplines and I I know why it's it's so funny i might go on any day of the week until 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon before I've put one morsel of food in my mouth because I practice intermittent fasting this new health crave where you don't eat uh in between a larger window of time and you restrict your eating to a narrower window of time in the daytime and so I often will not eat until noon or 1:00 but on a very busy day I might go as I said until 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon and I'm not even thinking about it but then on days when I know I'm fasting it's like the only thing I can think about oh when when am I going to get to eat that apple my second meal that doesn't add up to a full meal when combined with my first nonmeal i all I'm thinking about is food and that is exactly why we need to fast because when we know we're doing that to oursel it's the only thing we want and what fasting is supposed to help us do is only want God uh that every hunger paying every longing to satiate some craving in us we would give over to our Lord and and say "Lord I want to be filled by you i want to long this much for you i want to be hungry for you." And train ourselves to to translate our hunger for food into hunger for him and some of these things on the list I'll go back to it i think of course there's they're wise things to practice of course I think that actually fasting would help us fulfill what's on that list for example bitterness it'll help reign in the passions when we fast and then we'll because of that then we'll be better equipped to deal with the bitterness and the ungratefulness when you deny yourself food it makes you more thankful for food um when you done and uh even like when you fast or to look at the other way if you feast all the time it doesn't turn it's not really feasting it's your norm of overconumption but the fact that you can fast allows you to feast right um we'll wrap it up here with this but is there any closing comments that you have regarding fasting that you'd like to impart well I only just want to say that in Lent we are preparing ourselves for the great feast of Easter and to to close off on the point that you just made if we want to feast well at Easter time as we should uh we will not feast as well as we ought to have if we haven't been fasting leading up to it because it won't feel like a feast at all it'll feel just like any other day of the week if that is what we're accustomed to having and so if we want to experience the joy and and that which makes Easter as special as it is the best way to prepare for it is to deny ourselves what we're looking forward to enjoying as we celebrate our Lord's resurrection okay thank you thank you and uh please share with us below what's Sudotian love uh learning from you and always read your comments and again we'll close off with a prayer [Music] oh Holy Mary my mistress into thy blessed trust and special keeping into the bosom of thy tender mercy this day every day of my life and at the hour of my death I commend my soul and body to thee I entrust all my hopes and consolations all my trials and miseries my life and the end of my life that through thy most holy intercession and thy merits all my actions may be ordered and disposed according to thy will and that of thy divine son amen [Music]