We continue with thoughts of Mother Philomene du Gasset for Lent. She suggests there is a third kind of fasting beyond the normal fast and abstinence.
“This penance is self-reformation. It consists in quitting self, combating our defects and laboring to acquire the virtues that are opposed to them.
If many persons knew this, they would not make those about them suffer as they do.
We must reform ourselves we must go out of self for it is not of ourselves that we can enter upon the supernatural life. Our nature always attracts us to its desires, wills, inclinations and fancies; we must then struggle against it, struggle unceasingly with this self. It is in proportion to our detachment from self that the reign of God is established in us. It is very encouraging in doing this work, to think that all the vacancies, the voids, we make within us, in overcoming our faults, will be filled with the grace of God Himself.
Come then courage! We wish that all may spend as good a Lent as possible. Do not lose sight of the strengthening thought that God reserves for us in heaven the richest reward and most beautiful recompense.”