Fast Diary Day #1 (Pray-Cana Post)

 

I don't have a very good track record with fasting.  But when the bishops asked us to fast every Friday during this Year of Faith for the sake of marriage, I decided to give it a try.  Fasting isn't in my background, since I grew up Episcopalian.  So, my first Ash Wednesday as a Catholic was a big deal for me.  I decided to eat my one meat-free meal at lunchtime -- salad, since that's a good vegetarian food.  At the salad bar near my office, I cheerfully loaded up on egg salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad, (you can see what's coming, right?) and ... chicken salad.  It wasn't until after all that salad had gone down my gullet that I realized that chicken salad is more meat than salad.  Oh, well.

After getting married, I gave birth to six children in twelve years, so the exemption for pregnant and breast-feeding mothers applied to me pretty much all of the time.  But now, neither pregnant nor breast-feeding, I am ready to fast.  My kids voted on whether I would make it through the day.  The girls voted yes, but my son voted no.  Out of all the kids, my son is the biggest eater, so perhaps his response was natural.

For my first small snack, I grabbed a handful of dry Cheerios, then rushed the kids off to school.  It's said that St. Teresa of Avila could survive for weeks at a time on the Eucharist alone, so my next stop was 9 a.m. Mass.  My second small snack consisted of an extremely tasty apple around lunchtime.  So far, so good.  A little before 3 p.m., my stomach started growling like a wildebeest.  Or like a wildebeest would, if a wildebeest could growl.  It occurred to me that Jesus died on the cross at 3 p.m. after not eating all day.  Thoughts of giving up came and went.  I drank a gingerale to try to fool my system into thinking it was being fed, but sleepiness swept over me anyway before a phone call from a friend jolted me out of it.

At 6 p.m., a headache threatened, but coffee staved it off.  Watching the kids eat their ooey-gooey mozarella-laden pizza, redolent with odors of tomato and oregano, was difficult, but not impossible.
Then, my darling husband arrived to whisk me off to our hot date night complete with fish filets (no chicken) and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  The night finished with me secure in the knowledge that I had not let our Lord down.

Preliminary Verdict on Fast Day #1:  Not too bad.  You should try it!