[0:00]Most Catholics know that Lent involves fasting. What fewer people think about is what fasting is actually supposed to do. And how many different forms it can take. The church has always understood fasting as something much bigger than skipping a meal. The catechism of the Catholic Church describes it as one of the expressions of interior penitence, a turning of the whole person back toward God. Not just the stomach, the whole person. Pope Leo the 14th made this explicit in his Lent 2026 message. He called fasting, a concrete way to prepare ourselves to receive the word of God. And then went further, proposing what he called a practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence. Fasting from words that hurt and offend. That's the anchor for this video. Because if the Pope himself is expanding the definition of fasting beyond food, it's worth asking, what are the other forms? What does fasting look like when it moves through every part of your life? Here are five types of fasting for this Lent. Each one is grounded in scripture, in the tradition of the church, and in the voices of saints who lived this before us. Fast number one, the fast from food. We start here because it's the foundation. It's also the one most misunderstood. The catechism in paragraphs 1,434 through 1,438, is clear that fasting from food is a genuine act of penitence. It affects the body, which means it affects the whole person. The Council Vatican II in Sacrosanctum Concilium, maintained Lenten fasting as a central discipline of the liturgical year, precisely because of what it does spiritually, not just physically. But what does it actually do? St. Augustine gives us the answer. He wrote that fasting from food creates a hunger that points us toward something higher. When the body is emptied, the soul reaches out. That reaching out, that holy longing expands the soul's capacity to receive God. Augustine called this a form of prayer with the whole body. St. John Chrysostom pushed even further. He warned that fasting from food without any other change is incomplete. He wrote, what is the use of fasting if we spend the days in quarrels and disputes? The physical fast, he said, must open a door, not close one. So, the fast from food is real, ancient, and valuable. But it's meant to be the beginning of something, not the whole of it. Fast number two, the fast from words. This is the one Pope Leo the 14th placed at the center of his message. And it's the one that tends to make people most uncomfortable. He was specific. Avoid harsh words, refrain from rash judgment. Don't slander. Don't speak ill of people who are absent and cannot defend themselves. And he named every space where this applies. Families, friendships, workplaces, social media, political debates, the media, and Christian communities. St. John Chrysostom wrote about this in the 4th century with striking directness. He said that the person who controls their tongue during Lent is practicing a fast more demanding than any physical abstinence. The mouth, he argued, is where the inner life becomes visible. What comes out of it reveals what is actually inside. St. Benedict in his rule included a chapter on silence and the restraint of speech. He wasn't asking monks to never speak. He was asking them to speak only when it had something true, necessary, or kind. Everything else is noise that clutters the soul. In practice, this fast might look different for each person. For some, it means staying off comment sections for 40 days. For others, it means not repeating something they've heard about someone else. For others still, it means pausing before responding in a family argument. Choosing the slower, kinder word over the fast, cutting one. The Pope's vision is precise. Words of hatred giving way to words of hope and peace. That's not idealism. That's a concrete discipline with a concrete goal. Fast number three, the fast from screens and social media. This one doesn't appear by name in ancient texts, for obvious reasons. But the spiritual logic behind it is completely classical. The Desert Fathers, those early monks who went into the Egyptian wilderness in the third and fourth centuries, practiced what they called Hesekia, stillness, interior silence. A deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the world in order to hear what was underneath it. What they were withdrawing from was the ancient equivalent of our feeds and timelines. Constant chatter, other people's opinions, the endless current of information that makes sustained attention impossible. The catechism is direct about the purpose of Lenton discipline. It is meant to free us from sin and strengthen us in prayer. Screens are not sinful in themselves. But the compulsive, reflexive, unconscious use of them is exactly the kind of disordered appetite that fasting is designed to address. Bishop Robert Barron has written and spoken extensively about this. The idea that the digital environment creates what he calls a distracted self. A person who is perpetually scattered and therefore spiritually unavailable. Lent is the season to recover attention, to be present, to sit with silence long enough to hear something. A fast from screens might mean no social media before prayer in the morning. It might mean one hour offline each evening. It might mean a full digital Sabbath on Sundays throughout Lent. The specifics matter less than the intention. Creating space where God can actually be heard. Fast number four, the fast from complaint and negativity. This one is quieter, but it cuts deep. The letter to the Philippians, Chapter 4, verse 11, contains one of the most demanding sentences in the New Testament. Saint Paul writes from prison, I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. Not given contentment, not born with it, learned it. Through practice, through repetition, through a discipline of the interior life. The fast from complaint is an exercise in that same learning. It is different from pretending everything is fine. It is different from suppressing legitimate grief or honest concern. What it targets is something more specific. The habit of rehearsing grievances. The reflex of narrating our circumstances through a lens of what is wrong, what is lacking, what is not as it should be. St. Benedict's rule has a striking passage on this. He identifies murmuring, constant low-level grumbling, as one of the greatest threats to the interior life.
[7:39]Not dramatic sin, not spectacular failure, just the quiet, daily erosion of gratitude through complaint. A fast from complaint for 40 days is not about forced cheerfulness. It is about training the attention. Where is my gaze fixed? On what is missing, or on what has been given. This fast changes the quality of relationships. It changes the atmosphere of a home. And is one of the most practically difficult fasts on this list because it requires sustained awareness of a habit most of us don't even notice we have. Fast number five, the fast from indifference. This is the one the tradition calls fasting outward. And it might be the most important of all.
[8:26]The Prophet Isaiah, in Chapter 58, contains one of the most direct passages in all of scripture, on the meaning of fasting. God speaks through the Prophet and says, is this the fast I have chosen? To bow down your head like a read to spread sackcloth and ashes? No. The fast I have chosen is this, to loose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house. Pope Leo the 14th quotes this tradition when he says that the condition of the poor is a cry that throughout human history constantly challenges our lives, our societies, our political and economic systems. And not least, the church. The catechism, in its treatment of penitence, is clear that fasting is inseparable from almsgiving. They belong together. The food you don't eat becomes something to give. The money you save becomes something to share. The attention you free up becomes care you can offer to someone who needs it. The fast from indifference means choosing, for 40 days, not to look away, not to scroll past, not to change the subject when something uncomfortable comes up. It means allowing the reality of another person's suffering to actually land, and then asking what the right response is. This is the fast the church has always said transforms not just the individual, but the community. It is the fast that builds what Pope Leo the 14th calls at the close of his message, a civilization of love.
