Read: 1 Sm 15: 16-23 Mk 2: 18-22

“People came to Jesus with the objection, ‘Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast while yours do not?’” (Mk 2:18)

God designed us to appreciate nature, to seek happiness, and to ease our pain. The desire for happiness and the desire for joy is often our only motivation. And even in our most difficult efforts and tasks, we try to seek out a way of making our jobs easier, with just a little joy.

The Christian life is a journey to God that is not always easy. Rather, it is austere, a figurative and literal fast and renunciation of worldly satisfactions and pleasures.

Why can human pleasures and human happiness in, for, and by themselves be sinful? Why is suffering for others, a virtue? Then, why do we ask God to make us happy amid pain and suffering?

Certainly, we were destined for happiness, much as the bird was meant to fly. Yet we were made by God to know the true and supreme happiness by knowing His love.

The bad part of purely human happiness is that it easily separates us from the love of the Lord. And worse, it puts us against God when we try to order our lives according to our whims and vices while not in accord with the will and desires of the Lord.

For this reason, we must atone for our disorder and seek austerity, fasting, and a renunciation of even legitimate satisfactions to seek discipline in the spiritual, and thus physical, life.

Reflection and commentary

Psalm 6:9-10 “The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will receive my prayer.”