Ash Wednesday and Holy Lent
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Holy Lent: forty days of repentance, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord at Easter.
In Isaiah we read God’s expectations for a true and Holy fast:
“Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:5-6)
Historically, our English forefathers observed what was called the “Black Fast.” This was not a token abstinence, but a truly austere discipline: one simple meal taken late in the day (often after sunset), without meat, dairy, or other luxurious foods. It was a fast marked by a bodily participation in repentance and prayer.
The Book of Common Prayer appoints Ash Wednesday as a day of fasting and calls the faithful to “a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”
The Prayer Book retains the ancient expectation that Christians will fast.
Not giving up small comforts, but enter into a real bodily discipline and rule as an offering to God.
In our own age of constant consumption and comfort, Lent invites us to recover something of that older English and Apostolic seriousness. The Didache and the early Church testify that Christians fasted regularly and without complaint, especially in preparation for great feasts. Moderns have forgotten this. The modern church mocks real fasting.
Our Anglican tradition stands in continuity with that Apostolic pattern.
You may also consider:
- Fasting until evening on Wednesdays and Fridays
- Abstaining from meat/flesh during Lent
- Reducing meals to simplicity and necessity
- Making one’s confession with a priest
- Practicing intentional almsgiving (give special donations to the poor)
The goal is repentance. We fast that we may hunger for God.
Our Lord does not treat fasting as an exotic discipline for the especially devout. He assumes it as part of ordinary discipleship.
In Gospel of St. Matthew 6:16, Jesus says, “Moreover, when ye fast…” not if you fast. The grammar matters. In the same breath that He teaches us how to pray (“When ye pray…”) and how to give alms (“When thou doest alms…”), He teaches us how to fast. Prayer, almsgiving, and fasting belong together as the basic rhythm of covenant faithfulness.
His warnings are not against fasting itself. They are against counterfeit fasting.
He rebukes those who:
- Disfigure their faces
- Advertise their hunger
- Perform sorrow for reputation
- Use discipline as spiritual theater
The problem is not that they fast.
The problem is that they fast for the wrong audience.
“Thy Father which seeth in secret…” that is the audience that matters.
Tonight to begin this holy discipline together, marked with ashes—the sign that we are dust, and to dust we shall return—and yet dust redeemed by Christ.
“Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned.”
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