The ancient practice of fasting from food during Lent can free us from complacency and lead us to “hunger” for God. The Pope encouraged people to embrace the “ancient ascetic practice” of abstaining from food, as well as “refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbour.” Lent is a time to “place the mystery of God back in the centre of our lives, in order to find renewal in our faith and keep our hearts from being consumed by the anxieties and distractions of daily life,” the pope said. “Abstaining from food is an ancient ascetic practice that is essential on the path of conversion,” he wrote. “Precisely because it involves the body, fasting makes it easier to recognize what we ‘hunger’ for and what we deem necessary for our sustenance.” Fasting, he added, helps to identify and properly order our “appetites,” “keeping our hunger and thirst for justice alive and freeing us from complacency.” Pope Leo said that ” fasting not only permits us to govern our desire, purifying it and making it freer, but also to expand it, so that it is directed towards God and doing good. (Adapted www.catholicregister.org)