Fasting: a useless practice?
At the beginning of Lent, we want to recall the practice of fasting, which is thought to be useless even among Christians. Yet fasting and abstinence have always been part of Christian life because they respond to the continual need for conversion.
What value and meaning is there in depriving ourselves of something that is good in itself? The Bible teaches that fasting is a great help in avoiding sin and everything that leads to it. That is why it repeatedly calls us to fast.Β
Fasting is prayer expressed through the body. Through fasting, our prayer takes on flesh and is completed as we confess through the very fibers of our bodies that we seek God and that, beyond bread, we need his Word (Mt 4:4).
How to fast
Concretely, during Lent, it is enough to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast prescribed by the Church consists of eating one meal a day. Through this change in our usual habits, we seek to focus our attention on giving up something we care about, so as to say to the Father, also with our bodies: βYou are the most important thing to me!β
What should you give up?
Everyone knows their own tastes and, perhaps, even their own little addictions. So all it takes is looking within to understand what to give up: a favorite food, a glass of wine, using social media, a television series... without neglecting the fast that must never be missing: fasting from sin!
A proposal for you
Once we understand how to find our way, why not try spending one day a week or one day every two weeks... fasting on bread and water to discover what our bodies have to tell us about our attachments, addictions, fears, and weaknesses?
To make this experience even more special, we suggest making the bread that will be eaten on the special day of fasting, to rediscover that our habits - simple actions such as kneading, drinking, eating⦠- are filled with God's love.
FASTING BREAD
Type 0 flour 500 gΒ
Room-temperature water 375 gΒ
Fresh baker's yeast 8 gΒ
Honey 10 gΒ
Fine salt 10 gΒ
- Dissolve the fresh yeast in 60 ml of lukewarm water, add it to the flour and honey, and knead. Add the remaining water and knead. Once the liquids have been absorbed, add the salt. Knead for another 10 minutes or so. Cover the dough with a tea towel and leave it to mature for 16 hours.
- Work the dough again, gently stretching it with your hands to form a square. Take the outer edges and bring them to the center. Repeat this process 4 times.
- Transfer it to a tea towel placed in a bowl and leave it to rest for 4 hours.
- After 4 hours, preheat the oven to 220Β° and place a cast-iron or steel pot inside.
- Take the dough and turn it out onto a sheet of parchment paper.
- Using a sharp knife, make a cross on the bread. Taking care not to burn yourself, remove the pot from the oven and place the bread, with the parchment paper, inside it.
- Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes in a preheated conventional oven at 220Β°. Then remove the lid and continue baking for 20 minutes, switching the oven to fan mode to obtain a crispy crust while keeping the temperature unchanged. Remove the bread from the oven.
- Remove it from the pot using the parchment paper and leave it to cool on a wire rack.
