The times fixed for fasting by the Church are well
chosen. Fasting has two objects in view:
(i) The destruction of sin, and
(ii) the lifting of the mind to higher things.
The times self-indicated for fasting are then
those in which men are especially bound to free themselves from sin and to
raise their minds to God in devotion. Such a time especially is that which
precedes that solemnity of Easter in which baptism is administered and sin
thereby destroyed, and when the burial of Our Lord is recalled, for we are
buried together with Christ by baptism into death (Rom. vi. 4). Then, too, at
Easter most of all, men s minds should be lifted, through devotion to the glory
of that eternity which Christ in his resurrection inaugurated.
Wherefore the Church has decreed that immediately
before the solemnity of Easter we must fast, and, for a similar reason, that we
must fast on the eves of the principal feasts, setting apart those days as
opportune to prepare ourselves for the devout celebration of the feasts
themselves.
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