Summary
Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving are the three major penitential practices the Church encourages in the faithful particularly during Lent. In this talk, Fr. Patrick Gonyeau speaks on the importance of each one and how they can help bring about conversion in your heart particularly in relationship to yourself, to God, and to others.
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Reflective Study Guide Questions
The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1434
1. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving dispose us to true conversion of heart. Do you regularly and readily embrace these important penitential practices? How have you seen these transform your heart in the past? What do they look like for you this Lent?
2. Prayer is an invitation to intimacy with God, who sees and knows you fully. What does your prayer life look like right now? How might the Lord be calling you into a deeper relationship with Him?
3. Fasting is the act of refraining from food and drink (or something else) as an expression of interior penance, in imitation of Jesus in the desert. How have you approached fasting in the past? Do you find it difficult to commit to? What might God be inviting you to give up during this season?
4. Almsgiving is the giving of money or goods to the poor as an act of penance or fraternal charity. Fr. Patrick Gonyeau describes it as “Active generosity that helps conform us to the generous love of God.” In what ways is God calling you this Lent to be generous this season? How can you give of yourself (and your wealth/belongings) to those in need?
Text: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving: Fuel for the Fire
Well, hello friends. Welcome back. It’s Father Patrick again with John Stockwell in the Renewal of the Mind Daily Devotional and Radio Studio here. Check out ClickOnCatholic. com if you want to see those devotionals and those radio programs. A lot of fun. Thanks to Spirit Filled Radio out in California and Good Shepherd Radio in Michigan for letting us be on the air with you guys. And we’re also grateful for you. for those internet channels as well that allow us to put it out there. Oh yeah.
Fuel for the Fire
Now we are into session two that John and I are blessed to be a part of in this pray more Novena’s Lenten retreat. And this one is fuel for this fuel for the fire. So let me say the title correctly, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving fuel for the fire.
There we go. So John, uh, yeah, he’s a humble man. He’s got a couple of master’s degrees, but most of all, I love that he’s a husband and a father. That’s a school right there. Right. So, what’s on your heart when you hear the words prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? Well, fasting, I think, is something that I do on a daily basis.
I actually have a, an app. And I do 16 hours of fasting, then I eat for 8 hours, then I do 16 hours of fasting. It’s a great thing. I didn’t know he was going to say this. Fasting is hard for me. Yeah, the app, the app is great. I’m not giving them any plugs. They’re not sponsoring this. But for me, the other thing for prayer is spending quiet time in adoration.
Beautiful. And I did that several years ago. I had a daily holy hour. And I noticed over the span of several months. My life truly changed. So then if you have an adoration chapel near you, just go there and just spend time with Jesus a half hour, an hour, even 10 minutes and just sit there and spend time with him.
So that that’s what I think about quiet, quiet time. Praise the Lord. Anything almsgiving on your mind? I overtip. I’m always, even if the service is bad at the restaurant, I’ll tip like 25 or 30%. I’m go to the carwash, give the guy five bucks. I just, constantly helping people. Yeah, that’s incredible. You really surprised me with that fasting.
Oh my gosh. I didn’t know that. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Thanks for kicking us off. Alrighty. As he gets the machine. I’m off to the control room. So, you know, one time I went to John’s house, uh, to, to bless it a few years ago and I was so touched. I went to a room that he had and it was basically set up as a chapel and he had YouTube basically streaming in adoration.
John is a great lover of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Adoration and All of us, you know, going to the Blessed Sacrament. It is cool on YouTube that you can channel it into your phone or to your house. And he had one of his, one of his rooms basically set up as a little adoration. I was like, I’ve never seen this before. It was very beautiful.
A Season of Transformation
So, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Fuel for the fire. In the previous session, I had spoken about the fire of desire, this invitation from Jesus into divine transformation in the Lenten season. And now we’re going to look at how prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are fuel for that fire.
Just like fire needs, uh, fuel, the desire, this holy desire for divine transformation on the Lenten journey, that holy desire which I’m analogously calling a fire. That needs fuel as well. And God has given us prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to be phenomenal fuel for our Lenten journey and that fire of desire that helps us enter into divine transformation.
So, Lent, we looked at, is a penitential season. It’s truly a season of transformation in our lives as disciples of Jesus. Now, the acts or practices that are penitential, it means they dispose us to that interior penance, that interior conversion of heart. Listen to this wisdom from the Church, paragraph 1434 of the Catechism.
“The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist, above all, on three forms. Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others.” I really love that. So, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others.
It’s so good. Thinking for a moment. of John’s example of practicing generosity, some almsgiving in tipping, or like over tipping the person. Like that is really a growing in the generosity of God. And it’s also expressing the generosity of God to others. So quoting Catechism 1434 again, this Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others.
That’s so cool. Even to others, our acts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving can release some of God’s love upon this world around us, which expresses our conversion that’s happening to oneself, to God, and to others. Really incredible. I guess it goes back to when God says, love your neighbor as yourself. Now let’s dive into these three divine prescriptions, prescriptions, from God for our Lenten journey.
The Importance of Prayer
We have prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And these, these three beautiful practices are fuel for this fire of transformation, this fire of desire leading to transformation on our Lenten journey. First up is prayer, and I’ve got God, I give you some of this wisdom from the catechism. It’s paragraph 2565, which also wraps in some of St. Gregory of Nazianzus wisdom.
Here we go. In the new covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their father, who is good beyond measure with his son, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the kingdom is the union of the entire Holy and Royal Trinity with the whole human spirit. Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice holy God in communion with Him. The life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice holy God, and in communion with him. it’s so wonderful to think about this reality that the church calls the grace of the kingdom. Our spirit, our life, being in union with God goes back to the truth that we’re temples of the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus says in John 14:23 If you love me, you’ll keep my word, and my Father will love you, we will come to you and make our dwelling with you. There are these moments I have when I think of God’s presence in me and with me. And then I, We’ll have, uh, a time of thought that, How can I not grow in holiness? Well, it’s because of my flesh and concupiscence that we still have that strange desire for sin. And yet, the Catholic Church talks so clearly in the Catechism about self mastery.
That there is grace for every moment for us to be able to choose what is the Lord’s will for us. So, it’s not some pie in the sky dream to think that On the end of our Lenten journey, we’re going to be holier. We’re going to be more like Jesus. We will! This is why he gives us in the liturgical cycle, this penitential season, to participate in the work of God, who is transforming us more and more into the very image of the Son.
Romans 8 29. We are being conformed to the image of the Son. And so, prayer. Jesus tells us about the intimacy of prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says, When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you. That is one sentence, and it is just full of so much beauty.
Every word God speaks is full of grace. Now, The inner room, in Matthew 6: 6, that word in Greek is “tameion”, and it means a secret chamber, or a closet. An inner room, it’s a place. Intimacy, it’s a, see, I love the translation, secret chamber. The spot where you go to be with God. And then, when Jesus says, your father who sees in secret, Pray to your father in secret, and your father who sees in secret will repay you.
That word secret in Greek blepo, it’s, uh, excuse me, the father who sees in secret, the father who sees in secret, the word sees is blepo, and it’s more than physical sight. It’s perception. So think about this for a second, this inner room and God’s incredible perception of seeing you through and through, like when God said to Samuel when he was anointing King David that not as man sees does God see, God sees the heart.
This is prayer that Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Sermon on the Mount, that we are invited into this intimacy with God, the inner room. It’s your heart. I love how the catechism tells us that it is the heart that prays the center of your person, the center of who you are getting alone and intimate with God who perceives every ounce of your thought of who you are and holds you in that amazing love coming into that place.
And the catechism has this incredible description in paragraph 26 99. The Christian tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer. What do you do when you get in the inner room and you go to be with God, who the blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, who perceive you and hold you in their amazing love.
Different Types of Prayer
Prayer is exciting. So, the Catholic Church has retained three major expressions of prayer, vocal, meditation, and contemplation. They have one basic trait in common, composure of heart. I love that, composure of heart. I come before you, Lord. Intimate, into the inner room where you perceive me, I give you all of my attention and in this place with composure of heart, which another way I would say it is all of my attention, all of my affection, I can begin to speak with God.
Vocal prayer. You could pick up a rosary and meditate and pray out loud, meditate on the mysteries. Ask Mother Mary to help you gaze upon her son. Vocal prayer. So powerful. But remember also to listen after you speak, too. It’s good to give, always good to give God time to speak to our hearts. So vocal prayer.
And then meditation. You know, it’s a short, short, quick expression. But I like to think of meditation as thinking with God. Thinking with God. Ignatian contemplation is pretty famous, where you take a gospel scene and you enter it, and you’re seeing yourself in the scene, interacting with Christ and others in the scene, thinking with God.
And God will give us revelations, which is divine communication. So, vocal prayer, meditation, and then contemplation. And contemplation, one of the ways the Catholic Church talks about it, is a gaze of love, a gaze of love. You come into the secret place with God, that intimate place. inner union with the Lord.
You gaze on Him, you speak to Him, you meditate, you think with Him. You gaze with love, you contemplate Him. So prayer, you think about that. How can we not be transformed? I guess I gotta quote St. Paul. Oh my goodness! I’m talking at a rate where I feel like I wanna talk for 47 minutes, but I wanna keep this shorter.
So, there’s Just so much to be excited about in our prayer lives. Listen to St. Paul for a moment. In 2 Corinthians, he says, Whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Think of the veil for a moment as being distracted. And then you go to the inner room. This place of affection, attention.
You’re locking in vocal prayer, meditation, contemplation on the presence of God. And Paul says, The veil is removed, and the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.
Hold on, I read that right. Yes, it’s real. 2 Corinthians 3, verses 16 18. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Ask from the Lord who is the Spirit. That’s remarkable. There’s the old saying that you get a suntan by being, you know, out in the sunshine.
And you get, you get the glow of divine love by going before the Lord and gazing on Him. And, of course, in Eucharistic Adoration, like, that’s the most wonderful way to gaze right at Jesus. But also, He’s truly with you. When you go to the inner room in your prayer life, your heart And you get into that vocal prayer meditation contemplation, you rest and you gaze on him.
This is what’s happening. You’re gazing on the glory of the Lord, and you’re being transformed by that glory. into the image, into the same image, from glory to glory, being made more and more alive and refined in divine love. That’s pretty awesome.
Understanding Fasting
Okay, now, let’s jump to, from prayer to fasting. Wow, John, man, he put me on the floor with like, fasting for me is hard, and I don’t know, like, I’ll be 46 soon and the older I get, it seems to get harder, but I’m not going to give up!
I’m going to keep going. I’m glad, I’m glad we’re on a Lenten journey. I do enjoy it, but I don’t find that it’s like the thing that I’m looking most forward to. I’ll take contemplation please, but yeah, fasting is such a gift for us, and it’s Jesus. Well, let me give you a definition from the Glossary of the Catechism page 879, and I believe John’s going to be uploading notes for us if you want to just read along in the notes.
So fasting, here we go, refraining from food and drink as an expression of interior penance in imitation of the fast of Jesus for 40 days in the desert. There it is, just anytime it’s connected with this mystery of Jesus in the desert, I get inspired. I get that fire of desire stirring in my heart. So I’m in for some prayer fasting and almsgiving.
Let’s go. Okay, the external act, refraining from food and drink. That external act. is an expression of interior penance, which we remember means interior conversion of the heart, away from sin, toward God, and more transformation in divine love. And the sacrificial acts of self denial aren’t limited to just food and, and drink.
You can choose to deny yourself of watching, you know, the, the television at night, or whatever, listening to these podcasts, or whatever it may be to create that space for more time to be with the Lord in his transforming love. And I love how Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
They shall be satisfied. Like for me that’s the ultimate line about fasting and I find that literal hunger can, as much as it’s a struggle for me to fast, literal hunger can help sharpen the focus of our prayer lives. I do find that, that like my focus can be sharper for prayer and uh, more locked in by allowing that physical hunger to be a sign for me, like, focus on the Lord.
Now, it’s good to remember as well that fasting doesn’t change God. Fasting changes us. So we go from prayer to fast giving and fast giving, fasting. I made up a new word, John. We’ve got, we can just, now it’s just prayer and fast giving. I like fast giving.
What Can We Do For Almsgiving
So, okay, prayer. Fasting and almsgiving, almsgiving, and a definition from the catechism here is money or goods given to the poor as an act of penance or fraternal charity. Money or goods given to the poor as an act of penance or fraternal charity. And this not only helps our neighbor. But it’s help, it helps us to grow in holy detachment from wealth and possessions. It helps us to grow in that holy detachment that we’re able to give of our possessions, of our wealth, to help those in need, to help those who have less.
And God is generous. Oh is God generous. And every act of generosity that we are practicing helps us to be more conformed to God. to God’s loving generosity, to, to God’s love manifested through the Holy Spirit fruit of generosity. We are becoming more and more being conformed to the image of the Son through almsgiving, which is active generosity that is helping conform us to the generous love of God.
Now, when you think about prayer fasting and almsgiving, All three of these divine prescriptions, they help us in the Lenten season to continue to be conformed to Christ. Through our prayer, that intimate time with Him, gazing on Him, we’re being transformed. Through our fasting, we’re getting hungry for Him.
That’s drawing us to Him. Through our almsgiving, we’re in line with that love that gave everything on the cross, held nothing back, that we’re able to participate in that generous love. All of these, beautiful gifts, prayer fasting and almsgiving. They really are fuel for this fire of the holy desire God has for us and has put into us to want to be transformed in divine love.
So I want to invite you at the end of this session now, pray for the grace. I’ll give a blessing in a hot second after a beautiful prayer from John Vianney, Saint John Vianney, but pray for the grace. Carry this prayer for the rest of the day, next couple days. Pray for the grace to embrace prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
And believe you me, I’m at the front of the line. Lord, give me the grace to embrace prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I’m, I don’t mean to be a whiner here, but I want to be very real with you about like, fasting for me is, I, man, it’s just, whoo! So I’m praying for that grace to embrace it and celebrate what I’m able to do and keep growing in it.
Don’t beat yourself up if you’re like, Ah, I’m weak in this area too. Hey, we’re all grown and he’s going to give us magnificent graces to continue to transform our lives in this Lenten season.
Prayer from Saint John Vianney
So, let me say a prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, I lift these words of Saint John Vianney to you. Beautiful words of prayer.
I love you, oh my God. And my only desire is to love you until the last breath of my life. I love you, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving you than live without loving you. I love you, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love you eternally. My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love you, I want my heart to repeat it to you as often as I draw breath.
And through the intercession of Saint John Vianney, may God bless us with the graces to really embrace. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to help transform our lives on our Lenten journey. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Happy Lenten journey!
About Fr. Patrick Gonyeau
Fr. Patrick Gonyeau is a 45-year-old priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit currently living and serving with the U.S. Province of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood at the historic Sorrowful Mother Shrine in Bellevue, Ohio. Fr. Patrick also serves extensively with Encounter Ministries, teaching and ministering at events across the country and internationally as well. His deepest passion in life is union with the Blessed Trinity. From there, he seeks to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and teach, equip, and activate believers of Jesus into an ever-deepening lifestyle of Holy Spirit- driven intimacy and mission in everyday life. His Free Mustard Seeds podcast and Renewal of the Mind Daily Devotional on Facebook and YouTube are well-received proclamation of the Word ministries he runs in the online sphere. There is nothing Fr. Patrick wants more than to know and love The Blessed Trinity with his whole being to help others do so as Well.
You can listen to Fr. Patrick’s homilies, talks and testimonies here.
Additionally, here are other resources from Fr. Patrick:
Renewal of the Mind Daily Devotional, his radio program, Encounter Ministries, and Encounter School of Ministry.