Homily: February 20, 2026 Friday after Ash-Wednesday (Fast)

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 “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

People fast for various reasons. Many people fast for health, fitness and vanity reasons by doing intermittent fasting, detox diets, or weight loss programs.

Some prominent figures use fasting as a form of silent protest. Leaders like Gandhi used hunger strikes to fight injustice. And sadly, some people are simply not eating, they are starving not by choice but because of poverty.

Christian fasting is different. It is spiritual fasting and is not primarily about the body. It is about the spiritual heart.

Jesus’ disciples were not fasting like the disciples of other preachers, and He told them that when the bridegroom is taken away, they will fast. Because their fasting will be an sign of longing, a spiritual desire to be re-united with their master, it expresses the deep sorrow of separation.

Later, when the disciples could not cast out a demon, Jesus reminded them: “This kind can only come out through prayer and fasting.” He was referring to a spiritual fast.

Our life on earth is a constant spiritual battle. Not always dramatic or visible, but very real. The evil one is constantly tempting souls to engage in worldly and material comforts and pleasures to lead towards spiritual and permanent death.

While Jesus is constantly showing us another way — the way of self-denial that leads to freedom and eternal life. It is the way of fasting from worldly and material comforts, freeing the soul and body from the temporal dependence on food and other pleasures.

At the very beginning of His public ministry, Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert. Through fasting and prayer, and total dependence on the Father, He overcame temptation.

The saints understood this clearly. St. Augustine wrote: “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble… and kindles the true light of chastity.”

Fasting creates space where God can enter, where our desires are reordered, where our hearts are made to remember what truly satisfies and to recognize what is giving false and momentary satisfaction, and are simply distractions from the truth. We will need to fast from that.

What do you need to fast from?

Is it food alone? Or is it something deeper? That which is keeping you distant from God.

Fasting is not about proving strength. It is about rediscovering real hunger - hunger for God.

As we continue this Lenten journey, may our fasting awaken that holy longing within us — the longing for the Bridegroom, for His presence, for His love, for His coming again.

Amen.


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