Question: What do prayer and fasting accomplish?
 
 
Answer: “I’ll pray for you.” What do these words truly mean? It’s not just heart-warming to be remembered in prayer; Christian prayer also produces spiritual effects in the person praying and in the person prayed for. The Catechism speaks of prayer as “a cooperation with His providence” in filial trust, just as Jesus prays “in us and with us” and also for us: “All our petitions were gathered up, once for all, in his cry on the Cross and, in His Resurrection, heard by the Father” (CCC 2738-2741). The focus of prayer is thus on the Giver and His Gift of the Holy Spirit who Himself is Charity. 
Fasting is penitential, meaning that it rights wrongs. Thus we fast in Lent to help us correct our sinful ways. Prayer and almsgiving are intimately connected with fasting to produce its greatest effect: the liberation of our body and spirit for the sake of charity. Fasting for someone (the poor, for example) unites our heart with theirs in Christ’s Sacred Heart, thereby enabling us to have real charity for them, which is always more than empathy or good feelings for them.
Fasting & prayer are ways of being-with someone who may be unknown to us but nevertheless known and beloved to God. The accomplishment of prayer & fasting is the love of God: these practices give us the Heart of God for others, real compassion, sensitivity to their needs, and a divinely creative generosity to help them. How can beneficiaries of our prayers and fasts not experience the merciful love of God in Christ through us?
#30 in a series