Fasting for the Election

With the election coming up tomorrow, one of my friends (and a fellow Kenrick seminary), Davide Bianchini, had a great suggestion: we should fast for the day.  Here’s what he wrote:

Peter Paul Ruben, The Prophet Elijah Receiving
Bread and Water from an Angel (1628)

Someone encouraged me to do this, and I thought I'd pass it along to you as well. It is to do a one-day fast tomorrow (Tuesday) for the election. If you so feel inspired, please consider participating in this venerable tradition of the Church (As you know, the more traditional form of fasting is on bread and water, but if you think it will interfere with your duties, please consider making some sacrifice for the sake of our country, even if only to avoid desert. As Our Lord told Saint Faustina, any small sacrifice, when done with love, can effect change in the hearts of men.) Let us recall to mind the words of Our Lady at Fatima; "Many souls go to hell because there is no one to offer prayers and sacrifices for them", following the proclamation of the angel; "Penance! Penance! Penance!" And to Saint Faustina, Our Lord said the following; "You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone".

He then included excerpts from a post he wrote on his own blog, which included great quotes like this:

• Saint Gregory: "It is impossible to engage in spiritual conflict, without the previous subjugation of the appetite."
• Saint John Chrysostom: "Fasting is the support of our soul: it gives us wings to ascend on high, and to enjoy the highest contemplation! [...] God, like an indulgent father, offers us a cure by fasting."
• Saint Alphonsus De Ligouri: "He that gratifies the taste will readily indulge the other senses; for, having lost the spirit of recollection, he will easily commit faults, by indecent words and by unbecoming gestures. But the greatest evil of intemperance, is that it exposes chastity to great danger. 'Repletion of the stomach,' says St. Jerome, 'is the hotbed of lust.'

Just some food for thought, if you'll forgive the terrible pun.