Ember Wednesday: Fasting in a Distracted Age
MASS Reminíscere
LESSON Exodus 24: 12-18
LESSON 3 Kings. 19:3-8
GOSPEL St Matthew 12: 38-50
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
On this Ember Wednesday we walk, in spirit, the ancient Roman way. We would have gathered first at San Pietro in Vincoli, beneath the chains of the Apostle, while the Bishop of Rome collected our intentions. Then, chanting the Litany of the Saints, we would have processed to Santa Maria Maggiore, the basilica raised in honour of the Theotokos after Ephesus proclaimed that the Child she bore is truly God.
Peter and Mary. Authority and obedience. Office and fiat. The priesthood and the womb of faith.
The Ember Days sanctify the turning of the seasons. This spring Ember Week consecrates the renewal of creation to God and invokes His blessing upon those to be ordained on Saturday. In a time when the priesthood is misunderstood, diminished, or reduced to function, Holy Church reminds us: the priest is not a religious facilitator. He is configured to Christ the High Priest. And if the priest falters, the people starve. Therefore we fast. Therefore we pray.
But the pastoral urgency is not confined to seminarians. It touches every household.
We live in an age that has largely abandoned the rhythm of fasting. The body is indulged, the will is untrained, distraction is constant. We scroll rather than pray. We consume rather than contemplate. The very idea of self-denial appears suspect, even unhealthy, to a therapeutic culture. Yet Moses fasted before receiving the Law. Elias fasted before entering Horeb. Our Lord fasted before beginning His public ministry.
Fasting is not medieval severity. It is anthropology. It teaches the body that it is not the master.
Moses represents the Law — the Decalogue, the pattern of life willed by God. Elias represents the Prophets — fidelity amidst discouragement. How contemporary this is. Many today feel as Elias did: exhausted, ineffective, tempted to say, “It is enough.” Parents striving to hand on the faith in a secular climate; clergy labouring in parishes that feel spiritually anaemic; young Catholics navigating hostile institutions — the temptation to quiet resignation is real.
Yet God sends bread.
The angel feeds Elias for a journey he cannot yet see. So too we are given the Bread of Angels in the Holy Eucharist. Here lies a piercing pastoral question: do we treat the Eucharist as Elias did — as strength for a forty-day desert? Or as a pious addendum to an otherwise unchanged life?
Daily Mass is offered in many places. And yet how often is it neglected because of convenience, scheduling, fatigue? We have been given more than Sinai or Horeb ever offered. God descends into our very flesh. If we starve spiritually, it is not for lack of manna.
The Gospel intensifies the challenge.
“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign.” Ours is precisely such a generation. We demand empirical proof, emotional reassurance, immediate results. We are suspicious of mystery. Yet the only sign given is the sign of Jonas — death and resurrection. Christianity is not spectacle; it is Paschal.
The men of Nineveh repented at a prophet’s warning. The Queen of Sheba travelled for wisdom. We possess Scripture in abundance, catechisms, commentaries, sacraments — and yet the heart can remain unmoved. There is no shortage of access; there is a shortage of surrender.
Then comes the warning that cuts deeply into contemporary practice: the unclean spirit returns to a house swept but empty.
How often Lent becomes moral tidying. We give up a vice, reduce a habit, make a resolution. Easter arrives, and gradually the old patterns return. The spiritual life cannot be seasonal detox. If Christ does not enthrone Himself in the cleansed house, something else will. Nature abhors a vacuum; so does the soul.
This is why the Church brings us to Our Lady.
In a culture that celebrates autonomy and self-definition, Mary stands as contradiction. She does not curate her own destiny; she receives it. “Be it done unto me according to Thy word.” Christ declares that whoever does the will of the Father is His brother, sister, and mother. Mary is not marginalised in this saying; she is vindicated. She is Mother precisely because she obeyed.
The pastoral relevance is acute. Many today struggle with vocation — not merely priestly or religious, but vocational in the broad sense: marriage, singleness, professional life, service. We ask, “What is my plan?” rather than, “What is God’s will?” Mary teaches that fruitfulness flows from fiat.
And here is the Eucharistic climax.
Mary bore the Word within her for nine months. At Holy Communion, we bear Him sacramentally. We become, however briefly, living tabernacles. In an age of fragmentation and identity confusion, the Eucharist restores coherence. We are who we receive.
Therefore Ember Wednesday is not liturgical antiquarianism. It is spiritual realism.
It calls fathers to lead in prayer within their homes. It calls mothers to recover Marian confidence in God’s design. It calls young men to consider whether Christ may be asking more of them than comfort. It calls clergy to recover ascetical seriousness. It calls every Christian to guard the gains of Lent beyond Easter.
God is faithful. But He is not indulgent toward spiritual negligence.
Moses ascended the cloud. Elias walked in desert strength. Mary consented. The priest ascends the altar. We kneel to receive the Bread of life.
The question is no longer whether grace is available. It is whether we will cooperate with it.
Convertimini ad Dominum.
Turn to the Lord — not only for forty days, but for life.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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