Fasting Gives Way to Love

Saturday after Ash Wednesday, February 21, 2015

ABBA SILVANUS AND HIS DISCIPLE ZACHARIAS visited a monastery. The monks invited them to share a small meal before they continued their journey. Departing, Zacharias saw a pond by the road and desired a drink of water. Silvanus reminded him that they were observing a fast that day.

Zacharias protested, “But, Abba, we have already broken our fast today.”

Silvanus replied, “We ate with them because we love them. Now that we are on our own, let’s keep our fast, my son.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 220.]


I understand the confusion Zacharias felt. We’re fasting today . . . now we’re not fasting today, but eating with the monks . . . I want a drink of water, but Abba Silvanus says I can’t drink because we’re fasting today . . . but what about the meal we just ate with those in the monastery?

I’m a lot like Zacharias: If you tell me what the rules are, what is expected of me, I can usually operate within those parameters. That kind of legal, closed-in rules-keeping where the must’s, ought’s, and should’s are clear appeals to many of us.

Silvanus speaks with the wisdom of someone who has kept those laws, but who now lives by the Law of Love.

In what way can I best love these brothers who offered us food before our trip? Is it by keeping the fast? Or by eating what they set in front of us?

This isn’t merely a quick and easy way to escape our fast – as demonstrated by Silvanus once they got back on the road – but is a way to live a life with others that is given as fully as possible to love.

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