Why fasting, almsgiving, and prayer go all the way back to the beginning

Temptations of Christ, 12th-century mosaic in St Mark's Basilica, Venice
(click through to see a bigger image)

This is for anyone who ever felt as if the Church's prescription of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are picked out of a hat simply as hard things to do. Au contraire, the combination of John Bergsma' commentary with Joe Heschmeyer's observations show how fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are completely logical prescription from the Church during this time.

First, let's look at the nature of temptation.

The classic scriptural formulation of the nature of temptation is found in 1 John 2:15-16 (RSV2CE):

Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world.

In the Christian tradition, this threefold love of the world—lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life—is known as the three-fold concupiscence and lines up roughly with the sins of (physical) lust, avarice (greed), and pride.

We see this threefold pattern at work when Eve gives in to temptation: The woman saw that the tree was (1) good for food, (2) pleasing to the eyes, and (3) desirable for gaining wisdom.

"Good for food"—this is physical lust. "Pleasing to the eyes"—this is avarice, the desire to have more, to possess things for their beauty or value. "Desirable for gaining wisdom"—this is pride because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal to god. As the serpent says, "You will be like God" (v. 5, RSV2CE).

John Bergsma, The Word of the Lord Year A,
First Sunday of Lent, commentary on Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Bergsma goes on to draw the connection between Eve giving into the three temptations and Jesus rejecting all three in turn. He rejects lust of the flesh when he will not turn stones into bread to break his 40-day fast. He rejects the pride of life when he rejects the temptation to throw himself from the temple and let the angels save him. (It never occurred to me that this would have been quite a publicity stunt until reading this commentary.) Finally, Jesus rejects lust of the eyes when he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and rejects the act of worship that would make them his.

The Lenten disciplines are intended to help us overcome the temptation to the same sins. Fasting combats lust of the flesh. Almsgiving combats lust of the eyes. Prayer combats pride because we must acknowledge our dependence on God.

Helping Our Relationships in the World

Joe Heschmeyer in his Shameless Popery podcast points out that these three forms of sin not only hurt us but others. He begins with the Catechism, paragraph 1434:

The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. "

He then points out that the pattern of the three temptations hurts our relationships - with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with God. Lust of flesh hurts us and  fasting is a form of self mastery to help combat it. Lust of the eyes damages our relationship to others (our neighbors) because we desire their goods so almsgiving (giving to our own goods away) is an appropriate correction. Pride of life means we put ourselves in the place of God and obviously prayer is a way to correct our relationship with him.

This was a brand new connection for me and one that has added a deeper meaning to my fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is a way to help fix the damage that our sin has done in the world. Simply amazing.

Heschmeyer's commentary is best listened to, however I pulled this from the episode transcript for those who want a quick excerpt.

Now, there’s a cool connection that [the Catechism] just made there because the point is this, in sin, we hurt our relationship to ourself, we hurt our relationship with God, we hurt our relationship with our neighbor.

So if you are struggling with lust of the flesh, you have a disordered relationship with yourself. Okay, well, what’s the tool that combats that, the relationship with ourself? Well, fasting, it’s a form of self mastery.

Or I’ve got pride of life. I am putting myself in the place of God and I’m desiring these worldly things and I’m getting puffed up. Well, what’s the cure for that? Prayer.

Or I’ve damaged my relationship to others, I’m being greedy. I’m dominating those around me. I’m trying to get my neighbors goods, covetousness, all of that stuff. Well, what’s the cure for that? Almsgiving. That these worldly goods that maybe I really want will give that money away. And so rather than damaging your relationship to your neighbor by getting richer and richer while your poor neighbor languishes, you give to your neighbor.

So you can see this is hopefully very clear that the damaged relationship to myself is related to lust of the flesh. The damaged relationship to my neighbor is related to lust of the eyes. My damaged relationship to God is related to pride of life.

... Therefore fasting, which works on myself, prayer which works on my relationship with God, almsgiving works on my relationship with my neighbor, are especially kind of calibrated.

Joe Heschmeyer, Shameless Popery,
The 3 Spiritual Traps (and 6 Spiritual Weapons) of Lent