OF FASTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

OF FASTING.

A LESSON IN LENT. BY MATANGA. Outside certain strtct circles Lent has decreasing observance, yet its injunction to fast contains an enduringly good counsel for life, a counsel typical of whatever service may be well rendered when a reasonable religion is allowed to rule conduct. History suggests that customs having religious sanction are not dictated merely by the gods: they are based on human experience of good. In this instance, thcro is a direct service to health. The value of fasting for health of body and soul is not, difficult to prove, if that torso old Greek motto, " nothing too much," bo remembered. As an occasional, especially seasonal, custom, its merit lies in tho keeping of physical and mental fitness, to which if may contribute not «'i little.

It rests finally on the imperious law of necessity. In enjoining it religion is rooted and grounded in sane principles of living. Whatever makes for poise and power is to be welcomed, and that fasting, short of excessive, fanatical use, does this, cannot be doubted. Employed thus, it does more than " keep {lie body under." Serving to keep tho soul on top, it helps also toward bodily health and.strength. Grimm, who declares that our word " fast " is common to all Teutonic tongues, traces it to a root that means to check, to hold, to restrain oneself. Experience teaches us. that the moderate restraint of physical appetites is as beneficial as their unbridled indulgence is baneful. Fasting may therefore prevent the soul's enslavement by averting the body's ruin. Significant of this, such instances of definite fasts as those of Moses, Elijah and Christ are associated with meditation and spiritual victory. To an extent, Mahatma Gandhi's periodic fasts are in this historic lineage, although it may be argued that " the good of the cause," rather than his own poise of body or soul, has been the dominant motive. Without a doubt, his valuable reputation as a " holy man," and hence his popular influence, has been enhanced by this practice. Ancient Examples.

Old Egypt made much of this practice in association with religion. The initiate to the mysteries was subjected to a course of fasts. Similar restraint marked the Greek festival of the Eleusinian rites. When Rome borrowed Greek philosophy and practice, the fast, though less frequent, passed into Latin custom. The records of Nineveh depict the religious observance of it also. But it has been among the Jews -that fasting has undergone most definite development; and, since we have in Christianity the offspring of the religion of Judaism, the influence of Jewish practice has been felt throughout the Western world.

In the Mosaic law, rigorous and simple however elaborate it may appear, was found a place for one great ceremonial fast, thafc on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month. From sunset on the ninth day until the appearance of three stars on the evening of ' the tenth day no food was to be taken. The memorial and spiritual significance of that solemn festival was doubtless aided by the restraint so involved. Later in Jewish history other fast days were added to the religious calendar; the great anniversaries of sorrow and disaster were directed to be observed thus, and this tendency grew. Then what was meant to be a benefit became a burden.

It was given an excessive value in the teaching of the leading religious sects and accompanied by injunctions that distorted its helpful observance, into sheer ecclesiastical humbug. Abstinence .from washing was insisted upon as being equally, important with abstinence from food,- as if dirtiness were -the measure of devoutness, and this days of such filthy formalism were multiplied. The market days, when the juclges sat and the law was publicly read—our Mondays and Thursdays-—were observed with such fasts by the Pharisees. The Essenes prided themselves on even more frequent observance. The Sadducees —the agnostics of that age, who took exception altogether to the practice of fasting—were denounced as impious. A Guiding Injunction. • Moved by a deep sense of the need to rescue a virtue from the peril of becoming a vice, the Great, Teacher who was no less an Eastern than Gandhi, and more universal in outlook than the Indian agitator has beep, did not condemn fasting, but put it in its place. By example He gave it honour. But, faced with an utter distortion of a practice designed to achieva spiritual benefit, he unequivocally condemned the view of it that made it meritorious in itself. He emphasised the peril of trust in externals, the mistaking of religious observances for religion, the exaltation of form at the expense of spirit. Just as giving in charity is to be done " with simplicity and as much as possible with anonymity, just as prayer is to be a practice of the heart rather than of the body, so fasting is to be without excess or parade. It is a defect of Gandhi's practice that he follows it with studied publicity. He acts counter to the guiding injunction, " When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, have received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face; that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy Father which is in secret; and thy father, which seeth in secret, shall recompense thee." Not that Gandhi is necessarily a hypocrite; he merely has a shrewd eye on effect. Not Ceremonial Observance only. This well-remembered counsel awakens, as it must ever do, an ancient prophet's stinging rebuke of formal fasting. " Is not this tho fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and (hat yc break every voke ?" When joined, with humility, devoutness and benevolence, then, the practice is worthy and really serviceable whereas, as a merely ceremonial custom, it may be an abomination. Ilerrick, knowing England in a day when life had degenerated because religion had become perniciously formal, gave utterance in his way to that ancient rebuke by Isaiah : Is tliis a fast, to keep Tl>3 larder lean And clean From fats o£ veals and sheep t Is it. to quit the dish Of llesh, yet still To fill The plalter high with fish? Is it to fast an hour. Or ragged to go. Or f.liow A downcast look, or sour? No; 'tis n. fast to dole Thy she.if of wheat And meat Unto tlie hungry soul. It is to fast, from strife, From old debate And hate, To circumcise thy life To show a heart grief-rent. To starve thy sin. Not bin; And that's to keep thy Lent,. And that seems to bo the best point of view about the Lenten abstinence. Observed thus, it need never lack a sane defence..