Objection: “Fasting is pointless. When one has faith it is useless for
salvation or sanctification! And doesn’t St. Paul say, ‘For the
kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17).”
Most Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants generally see no value in
fasting, due to their doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is sufficient
simply to accept Christ as one’s “personal Lord and Savior” to be “saved”
and have one’s sinful nature “covered up” by the merits of Christ. In
addition, in accord with the doctrine of “total depravity,” every action of
man is considered sinful, including fasting. For other Protestants, though,
fasting does have value, not as a means of sanctification but by way of
appeasing God’s wrath and deterring His just chastisements.
In contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that fasting is a meritorious action
which not only deters God’s wrath but goes to sanctify the Christian and
assist him to achieve the ascendancy of the spirit over the flesh. As with all
meritorious actions, fasting increases the life of sanctifying grace in the
soul (“participants of the divine nature”: 2 Pet. 1:4) and remits temporal
punishment due to sin.
Numerous passages both in the Old and New Testaments speak of fasting
and its value for the People of God:
“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting,
with weeping, and with mourning” (Joel 2:12).
“Prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and
righteousness” (Tob. 12:8)
“And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and
everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth” (Jon. 3:5).
“But as for me, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself
with fasting. I prayed with head bowed on my bosom” (Ps. 35 [34]:13).
“Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and
supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes” (Dan. 9:3).
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