Lent is intended to be a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Many people can understand the benefit of prayer. Most if not all people can understand the social benefit of almsgiving. But what’s the deal with fasting? Isn’t that just something people do when they’re trying to lose weight? Certainly, if one hopes to lose weight, then fasting is not a bad way to do it. That being said, Lent isn’t a time for fasting because Jesus wants you to fit into a new pair of skinny jeans. Lent is a time for fasting because it is something that, believe it or not, has spiritual benefits as well.

For those who don’t know, us Latin Catholics are meant to fast one hour before receiving the Eucharist/Communion, which, for most people, means that they must stop eating about 15-20 minutes before your usual Sunday Mass begins. It’s not much of a fast: one hour is not a long time to go without food. That one hour fast used to be three hours. Even before that, the fast began at midnight, and this is, in fact, the origin of the Christmas Midnight Mass: it’s not that everybody liked to stay up late. Rather, it meant that people didn’t have to fast. However, as practices like vigil and daily masses came into existence/became more common, the discipline (because it is just that: a discipline) evolved into what it is today: a one hour Eucharistic fast.

One hour isn’t much, but you’d be surprised how (particularly if you had no plans to go to Mass) easy it is to be scrupulous about these sorts of things. I recall there was one time when a friend and I had breakfast together, and then spontaneously went to a Mass nearby: I was (half-jokingly, I’ll admit) glancing at my watch to make sure I was in the clear. I even stood in the longer line for communion to kill the time. Again, I was half-joking. But there is something sinisterly scrupulous about this way of thinking, isn’t there?

What’s the difference between 55 minutes and one hour? What’s even the difference between 50 minutes and an hour? What about 40 minutes and one hour? I’m not asking these questions to encourage anyone to break that fast. I’m asking because I want to make a point that’s even more basic than any proscribed discipline. Namely, why do we fast? Because there is a spiritual value in being intentionally hungry, viz. of going without. Am I really that much more hungry at one hour than at 40 minutes? Not really. One hour is the bare minimum that is proscribed, and it’s honestly not asking for much. My point, therefore, is not that one should violate the one hour Eucharistic fast. My point, au contraire, is that people would benefit greatly if they were to go above and beyond what the Church is asking.

I discovered this while at Mass the other day. My Lenten penance has basically been Ash Wednesday everyday, apart from Sundays. That means, no meat, one meal, and two snacks that equal less than one meal’s worth of food. This has made Eucharistic fasting incredibly easy for me because chances are that I haven’t eaten in that one hour period beforehand. As a matter of fact, chances are good that I hadn’t eaten much by that point of the day at all. As such, I would go up for communion feeling very hungry on some days, as I did this day; and as I did, silly as it sounds, that little communion wafer really tasted like gold when I’d hardly eaten anything else. It was the kind of relief that could only come from fasting, and it was an excellent reminder of how we constantly require nourishment, and the Eucharist—or the Lord’s Supper, if you will—is just that: a supper, and the source of that nourishment.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we remember the Last Supper. It seems more obvious to us now, with ~2000 years of hindsight, but I would be surprised if the Twelve understood the full significance of that Supper while they were there. On the face of it, to them, it probably looked like an ordinary meal, but of course it was far more than that. Or perhaps, as theologians like Herbert McCabe would say (see God Matters), that dinner was “more radically” the source of nourishment than all the rest of them. There was no reason for God to have instituted the Eucharist as he did: the Eucharist is not necessary in the way that baptism is necessary (cf. ST III, q. 64, a. 4). Still, there must be some reason why it was instituted as it was, and I reckon that is because it is the perfect reminder to us human beings, whose flesh and blood depend on food and drink, that “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word … of God” (Mt 4:4).

By adequately fasting before receiving communion, we are soberly reminded of this fact, and it is one of many reasons why, especially in this Lenten season, I would encourage anyone to seek the spiritual value in fasting.