In yesterday’s DM we reflected on the current Lenten season and shared two variations on Ash Wednesday practices including the practice of what to give up for Lent.
This is the season to heed the prophet Isaiah: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6)
What other fasts might we consider this Lent?
What if we chose to fast from fascism and Christofascism?
And from Project 2025, the blueprint that seeks to put an end to democracy everywhere and replace it with government of the super rich, by the super rich and for the super rich? We learned this morning news about the richest man in the world, who has bought himself a job as co-president by gifting the president’s campaign $288 million (and $19 million to republican congressional campaigns), and is now a regular in the Oval Office.
He who is slashing tens of thousands of government workers from their jobs has now pumped over $6 million into the campaign for supreme court judge in the state of Wisconsin. (It worked in winning the WH, why not in any judicial election in the country he chooses to participate in?)
Our elections were put on the block for sale years ago thanks to the Cizens United decision. SCOTUS told us—with a straight face—that corporations are persons and money is speech and there need be essentially no limits on campaign donations. Democracy is for sale. Any bidders?
Maybe we should fast from that?
What if we chose to fast from doing nothing while our democracy is disappearing before our very eyes? The MAGA party has told its elected representatives to cease holding town halls because too many angry constituents are showing up. Show up!
Let us fast from denial—denial that Evil is real. And busy and rich and powerful and bent on destroying the whole meaning of the common good.
And fast from Evil that turns its back on the suffering of others such as citizens of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, invaded three years ago by a tyrannical oligarch of Russia, and now undergoing the worst war in Europe since WWII.
A war where the new American government has now chosen sides, choosing to support the aggressor and not the victim of that aggression. An aggressor now mowing over the United Nations charter that forbids large countries from invading smaller ones.
Let’s fast from the Evil of ignoring climate change and calling it a “hoax” and eliminating environmental laws that protect the planet and firing thousands of workers at EPA. In other words, fast from destroying our sacred Mother Earth and future generations of creatures—humans included—now on a path to extinction.
Is Lent a special time to stand up to the Antichrist however it incarnates itself in time and history, politics and government?
One organization is inviting people to “fast from injustice and billionaires and corporations that are stoking hate and to take a Lenten boycott pledge that shows solidarity with others. Faithful America invites all to join a pledge to observe a Lenten corporate boycott [that] will remind us every day that we are not alone or powerless in the face of all of this evil. And it can encourage us to build relationships with local businesses that need and deserve our support. To sign the pledge, click HERE.*
*SIGN THE PLEDGE: Boycott pro-Trump corporations for Lent this year. Faithful America.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Matthew Fox, “Spiritual Warriors” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 404-422.
Also, Fox, “Warriors for Ecological and Economic Justice: Meister Eckhart Meets Dorothy Stang, Karl Marx, David Korten, Serge Latouche, Anita Roddick, and Howard Thurman,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp. 221-230.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Banner image: Ash Wednesday. Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
What are you choosing to fast from this Lent?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
6 thoughts on “Further Fasts For Lent, 2025”
Our job is to get behind the ‘plough’ every day and turn over the good soil for planting. … In lamentation we stop the horse and pause by the plough. We can kneel, pray, look around, cry out in remorse and sip on some water to refresh us. And then we put our hands back on the plough and carry on with our work, our duty, our service as the ‘One’ comes behind us and plants the seeds. … When lament turns into long-term despair for some, they need to be fed, loved, forgiven and supported as they willingly walk back to their plough and are encouraged to move forward again in faith and healing. Many are weary and lent is our time to pause and reflect. – BB 03 05 25 —–.
Some suggestions for keeping lent include:
buying nothing except for bare essentials and giving the savings to those in need
turning off our computers and phones, and fasting from the wretched excess of commercial entertainment
sharing some time with a neighbor in need, helping the helpless
writing a public letter speaking on behalf of peace rather than showing our anger and fear
I agree and would add finding sources of humor, which give a whole body positive reaction and restore a sense of perspective and spending time in nature, which is always healing.
Fear.
Fast from mental submission to the moral injury of this election and administration.
After listening to the State of the Union, I lay too exhausted to move and not able to sleep. Earlier in the day I had participated in a zoom with Rita Nakashima Brock that addressed “moral injury” [“perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” (wikipedia)] — and next morning it dawned on me that I, our country, and the world are suffering from it — forced daily to witness or maybe to applaud this torrent of falsehood and antagonism.
Naming this intense feeling brought solace and affirmation, and freed me from simply cringing to respecting and indeed honoring this human moral reaction, and ready to resist and repair “everywhere, all at once.”
Fear & despair! Holding on to Our Faith in God’s Spirit of LOVE~WISDOM: Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Forgiveness, Strength, Transformation, Creativity, Beauty, Joy, Compassion, LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS within, through, among Us in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….