When I was growing up, one of the summer food favorites was a hot dog. It is easy to prepare and can be made extra special by adding a variety of toppings. There was a hot dog café in my home town where a kid could get two chili dogs for 25 cents, including the buns. I haven’t had a hot dog for a long time, but have graduated to brats. What got me thinking about tubular cuisine was the annual July 4th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. This is a competitive event to see how many hots dogs, including buns, a person can eat in 10 minutes – the record is 73. (If you’re interested, there’s also a lemonade chugging contest – the record is a gallon in 21 seconds.) To add to your indigestion, there are two oversight organizations which monitor these type of competitions, International Federation of Competitive Eating and Major League Eating, really!

At a time when overeating has resulted in multiple health issues, severe food shortages have caused starvation and death, and where food has become a weapon in war-torn counties, eating contests are not only stomach-turning but also obscene. All major religions have recognized the dangers caused by an obsession with food and have encouraged and/or required fasting and abstinence as spiritual disciplines. Even some contemporary diet programs are recognizing the value of fasting. If so many spiritual and health advisers see the value in fasting, maybe it would be worth another look.

Bible-based religions like Christianity and Judaism find their inspiration for the practice of fasting in significant personages’ examples – e.g., Moses and Jesus. One of the five essential duties of Islam is fasting as practiced in the month of Ramadan. The spiritual goal of all fasting is to become so focused on God that we are willing to put food aside for a while. Indeed, food is a wonderful gift from God but at times we are willing to focus more on the Gift-Giver than the gift. Fasting presumes an attitude of humility which professes our need for God and our sense of emptiness without God. Maybe the message to consider when we revisit the discipline of fasting is: what or whom do you hunger for, what truly feeds your spirit? Bon appetite!

-Fr. Dennis Lynch