“Jesus opposed fasting; therefore, Catholic fasting is unbiblical.”
In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus is questioned about his disciples’ behavior. People were used to John the Baptist, whose disciples periodically fasted. So did the Pharisees. Although John’s followers and the Pharisees had little in common, they shared that discipline. And it seemed to differentiate them from Jesus’ followers, whom they don’t see fasting. So what gives?
This at least seems like a sincere question, and Jesus answers it calmly. Jesus, who in these readings during early Ordinary Time is revealing who he is, today characterizes himself as “the bridegroom.” People attend weddings not to fast, but to feast, because weddings are joyful occasions. Throughout his public ministry, Jesus compares the coming of the kingdom—the leitmotif of these early Ordinary Time readings—with a nuptial banquet. Indeed, in these days after Epiphany, the Church likes to blend three mysteries together: the coming of the magi; Jesus’ baptism by John; and the wedding feast in Cana, which inaugurates Jesus’ public “signs” in the Gospel of John. So if you can read the “signs of the times,” you know Jesus’ coming is a joyful time to be celebrated.
But these fasting and dining questions seem also to dog Jesus and his apostles throughout their public ministry. Sometimes, his answers are not as equanimous as today’s. It’s not because Jesus is tired to addressing the question; rather, it has to do with the sincerity of his interlocutors. In today’s interaction, the query seems straightforwardly honest: we see the Pharisees and even John doing X, but you and your disciples do Y. Why?
Elsewhere, the sincerity may not be so straightforward. There’s an episode where Jesus and John are compared (Matt. 11:1-19), and Jesus’ answer is “make up your minds what you want.” Invoking what may have been a popular saying in Jesus’ time, he says: play a happy song for you guys, and you won’t dance; play a dirge, and you won’t wail. What do you want? “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
John, the ascetic of the Nazirite Vow par excellence, fasts on locusts and wild honey, and you call him out of his mind. Jesus, the Bridegroom, is labeled intemperate. In this instance, it’s clear the question is not one of “what does God want us to do?” as much as “I don’t like you or John!”
Elsewhere, we see the Pharisees taking Jesus and his disciples to task for failure to observe ritual purity laws—e.g., various ablutions of the hands and eating utensils (see Mark 7). Here human customs, Pharisaic interpretations, and divine law get bundled indiscriminately in one package, a package Jesus wants no part of. Jesus’ explanation is summarized by Mark (v. 19) as “thus he declared all foods clean.” But the controversy over adherence to the kosher laws would run into the early Church, as Judaizers insisted those laws and circumcision were binding on the mass influx of Gentile converts, too. It would take the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) finally to end disputes over dietary rules and customs.
Jesus does recognize fasting. He does it himself for forty days at the beginning of his public ministry, when he is tempted. He speaks about how one should comport himself when fasting so that the focus is on the relationship with God, not the external behavior (Matt. 6:16-18). He speaks of fasting as a penitential work and sign. And Christians from their beginnings have had both feast and fast days, which are determined not by individual wants, but by common ecclesial discipline. So to claim that Catholic customs of fasting (limiting meals) and abstinence (refraining from meat) are “unbiblical” is simply unhistorical—including in the history of the Bible.
Ash Wednesday—a day of fast and abstinence—is about a month away (February 19). In classical Protestant theology, fasting and abstinence were considered unacceptable “popish” practices. The Protestant Reformation in Zurich, for example, is considered to have begun when people publicly ate sausages on a Lenten abstinence day in the Swiss city in March 1522. Ulrich Zwingli wrote a whole essay about it.
But, as we can see from scriptural witness, fasting—as known in Christian circles—is a Christian tradition with pre-Christian roots.