Fasting By Necessity

 

A Prison Without Bars - In the Wilderness. A review of a life by a now emeritus professor of a Korean University.

Compared to the past, today's international students begin their studies in relatively stable circumstances. However, even 40 years ago, studying abroad was a journey fraught with survival itself.

My journey abroad with my pregnant wife was arduous from the start. There was no income, only expenses. My wife, who had been keeping a household account book, one day said, "I don't want to spend anymore." Faced with the reality that she had less than $100 left, keeping a record of our expenses became not a source of comfort, but despair. I was at a loss for words as my wife wept, asking what she should eat.

Then, a verse from the Bible suddenly came to mind: “If God feeds the birds of the air, how much more precious will he be to his children?” (Matthew 6:26). Those words didn’t erase all my worries. But they gave me something to hold on to. In fact, those words were more of a pledge to myself than to my wife.

My wife later called those days “a prison without bars.” We had no money, so we couldn’t go anywhere, and my husband was always busy with his studies. My wife spent each day at home, caring for our children, filled with anxiety. My body was free, but my mind was always imprisoned. It felt as if invisible bars were surrounding our lives.

On Sundays, I would take someone else’s car and drive down the highway to the Sacramento Korean Catholic Church, about 40 minutes away. Celebrating Mass, sharing meals, and chatting with fellow Koreans provided the only solace I had throughout the week. That encounter felt as desperate as someone waiting for a visitation in a detention center. For a moment, I felt reconnected with the world.

Looking back, my time studying abroad was like a wilderness. In the wilderness, food is scarce, and there's no proper place to rest or sleep. There, humans become the most vulnerable. As their dependence diminishes, they have no choice but to cling to God. The wilderness is where human inadequacy is most starkly revealed, and at the same time, it's where faith becomes most purified.

In the Bible, the wilderness is always a place of prayer. Moses wandered in the wilderness and sought God, and Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days in the wilderness. Fasting was not a choice, but a way of life created by an environment that forced us to let go of our greed. The wilderness is not a place to satisfy human desires, but a place to empty them.

The fasting of Lent follows the same pattern. We often understand fasting solely as a practice of self-restraint or sharing. However, its true meaning lies deeper than that. Fasting is a passageway for emptying ourselves and approaching the Lord fully. For believers, fasting is the body's way of confessing, "Lord, I cannot live alone."

Prayer offered from a place of surrender is different. There are no calculations or conditions. We simply entrust ourselves to the Lord and cling to Him. Lenten fasting is not a discipline meant to forcefully torment us, but a path of grace that leads us into the wilderness. It is a time to step back from a life lived solely for ourselves and return to a place where we can hear the Lord's word. My time as a student abroad, a time like the wilderness of my past, still teaches me anew the meaning of fasting.