Year II 22nd Saturday of Ordinary Time- "Fools for Christ"

San Francesco d'Assisi

Lest anyone panic, my homily this morning was a much shorter version of this rather long reflection on today's readings. It timed out at about 7 or 8 minutes. I came home and intended to tighten it up a bit before filing it, but it kept flowing. There must be something God wants to say to somebody reading this. Deo gratias!

Readings: 1 Cor 3,6b-15; Ps 145, 17-21; Lk 6,1-5

We continue this morning with our reading through St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Despite appearances, Paul is still discussing what it means to be spiritual people, albeit it in a sarcastic, but loving manner. In this passage he uses the famous phrase "fools for Christ" (1 Cor 4,10), which many of us associate with St. Francis of Assisi and his early followers, to describe himself and his companion Apollos, as well as all of the apostles. He contrasts the foolishness of the apostles with the Corinthian Christians who, he sarcastically writes, "are wise in Christ" (1 Cor 4,10).

In describing himself and his fellow apostles as "fools for Christ" who are worthy of imitation, Paul writes about what it means to be a fool for Christ. In doing so he is careful not to go beyond what is written, which is just another way of saying that he and Apollos only teach what Christ himself taught. The behaviors Paul attributes to these "fools for Christ" are indeed rooted in Jesus' teachings, particularly in the beatitudes . According to the apostle, a fool for Christ when ridiculed blesses; when persecuted, patiently endures; when slandered, responds gently (1 Cor 4,12-13). This blends in nicely with the reading for this morning's prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours, taken from Romans, chapter 12, in which Paul exhorts the Roman Christians to "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil."

It is easy to see why the world finds such behavior foolish. Certainly each of us individually can attest to the wisdom of God being foolish to those living "in the flesh" by considering our own reactions when we are ridiculed, persecuted, or slandered. We want to defend and justify ourselves. Almost reflexively do we return evil for evil. Such reactions are very natural, which is to say they are visceral and automatic, but we are not slaves to our fallen nature because, as we read in first Corinthians at the beginning of the week, we have received the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2,12). As disciples of the Lord Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are called and committed to a higher way, to cooperating with God's grace, which builds on our nature, to being transformed and matured into Christlikeness.

So, when Paul refers to the Corinthians as "kings" and as being "wise" he is lovingly, if sarcastically, chiding them in order to make his point, calling them, and us, to deeper conversion. That to be like Christ is to be accounted a fool is made clear from the very first chapter of this letter:

"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside." Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith'" (1 Cor 1,18-21).

In our passage today, Paul is elaborating even further on this theme. To be wise in Christ, he insists, means to receive in faith what is taught by Christ himself and by his "fools." According to the apostle, the wise person realizes that what s/he possesses is a gift freely given. But a gift is not a gift until it is received. Because what we have received from God, our loving Father, is a freely given gift, not something we earn or deserve, it is not something to be puffed up or haughty about. On the contrary, it should be humbling. After all, who are we that we deserve to be given the riches of God? On receiving God's gift, theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote:

"Faith is a movement of the entire person away from himself, through the gift of grace; thereby he lays hold of the mercy of God given to him in Christ--in the form of the forgiveness of sins, justification, and sanctification. In this movement away from himself man has done all that he, through grace, can do; he has done all that God requires of him. Since his intention is to leave himself, without reservation, and hand himself over entirely, this movement implicitly contains all the 'works' that he will eventually do. They are not some second entity beside faith; if they are performed in a Christian spirit, they are only forms in which faith expresses itself."

Balthasar indicates by his allusion to "all the 'works' that [we] will eventually do, that faith, although a gift from God, is a way of life. Christ himself is "the Way" (Jn 14,6). Even before being known as Christians, followers of Jesus, the movement we now call Christianity, was simply known as "the Way" (Acts 9,2). Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that the Way must be learned: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? " In this way faith becomes a verb, not a noun.

In addition to sending His beloved Son, God, our Father, sends others who teach us the faith, not just by their words, but more powerfully by their manner of life- those who walk the walk. These are the people, the women and men, we must seek to be like insofar as they are like Christ. Of course, exemplars of the Gospel par excellance are the saints. For our communion extends beyond this world into eternity. The saints are powerful intercessors on our behalf, if we will invoke them. Yesterday, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we discussed briefly three dimensions of our life of worship and devotion: latria, hyper-dulia, dulia. It is the last of these that is the theological term for the veneration, honor, and respect we pay to the saints. I daresay we all have a patron saint, baptismal patron, a confirmation patron, or a saint whose intercession has been beneficial to us. Invoke them daily, ask them to intercede for you, study their lives. By not doing so you forfeit much treasure lavished on us by God, who, as our loving Father, wishes to give us all He has and is.

In today's Gospel Jesus speaks powerfully to the manner of Christian life by his violation of Jewish Sabbath observance. By invoking the example of David and his men eating the bread of offering, reserved for the priests, in their hunger, our Lord tells us that, at root, following Him is not about keepingthe rules. Our Holy Father further highlights this teaching in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est , by writing, "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (DCE, 1). Those we seek to emulate, the holy women and men both past and present, are those who have encountered our resurrected and living Lord, Jesus Christ. This encounter has given their lives a new and "decisive direction." By decisively turning (to turn around, or change one's mind is the meaning of the Greek word metanoia, usually translated in English Bibles as "repent") in this direction, they chose the narrow path that led to them into beatitude, from whence they can intercede for us.

It is not too much to say that many of us have encountered our resurrected Lord. So, let us ask ourselves, as we prepare to encounter Jesus in the most intimate way in the Eucharist, what difference is our encounter making in our lives today? Let us probe a bit deeper and ask what difference should our encounter with the living Christ be making in our lives? Am I sharing the gift I have been graciously given, or am I prideful and puffed up about it? Does the gift of Jesus Christ make us humble and cause us to give thanks, which is the meaning of Eucharist, always to the Father for having found the Pearl of Great of Price?

It is by asking ourselves these questions frequently and answering them honestly before God both in our private prayer and in our sacramental encounter with Christ in confession that we heed what our Lord and his apostle, St. Paul, teach us. So, on this day as we prepare to celebrate that little Easter we call Sunday, may we be more open to receiving more of the infinite gift that our loving Father wants so desperately to give us- His love, which is His very self. Christ invites us today into his foolishness of which Michael Card sings so beautifully:

"When we in our foolishness thought we were wise/

He played the fool and He opened our eyes/

When we in our weakness believed we were strong/

He became helpless to show we were wrong/

And so we follow God's own fool/

For the only the foolish can tell/

Believe the unbelievable/

And come be a fool as well"

Well it's got to be a Choc-O-late Mary

I came across the story of the Blessed Virgin making an appearance in chocolate in California this morning on what very well might be my favorite blog, Rocco Palmo's Whispers in the Loggia. It put me in mind of a Tom Waits' song, Chocolate Jesus, from his magnificent album Mule Variations. I find Waits' somewhat irreverent song strangely Eucharistic. Here's the chorus:



Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied


Lest ye be unduly offended; follow the link and read all the lyrics. If that isn't enough, do yourself a big favor and begin acquainting yourself with the work of Tom Waits. In that way you will understand his, admittedly, strange take on the world, including his quirky spirituality.

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: Mi 5,1-4; Ps 13, 6; Mt 1,18-23

Today we celebrate the birth of the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God, Mary Most Holy, who was conceived without original sin in order to be able to carry God the Son, the Second Person of Most Holy Trinity in her womb, to be the privileged channel through whom God became man. Today’s Gospel makes clear Mary’s purpose as well as the crucial role she plays in God’s plan of salvation. We celebrate this feast less than a month after celebrating our Blessed Mother’s glorious assumption into heaven at the end of her life, which calls us to pray for the grace of a joyful death. To die joyfully is to die in the friendship of Christ, the Virgin Mary's son.

Mary’s conception without sin (i.e., Immaculate Conception) was dogmatically defined by Pope Pius IX in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated on 8 December 1854. In essence the dogma, which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, pronounces that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." This means that Mary was conceived by her parents, who, according to tradition are known as Joachim and Anna, in the normal way children are conceived, unlike Mary’s conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, which is also a unique and singular event. Her unique role in the economy of salvation is recognized in the role she plays in our Catholic worship and devotional life. First there is latria, which is worship due to God alone. Then there is dulia, or the veneration we give to the saints. In between these two is the category of hyper-dulia , which is exactly what it sounds like, super veneration. Alone in this category, between God and the saints, is our Blessed Mother, Mary.

It is important not to wax too romantic about Mary’s life and what her "Yes" to God meant for her in practical terms. Her lot was not without suffering, fear, and anxiety. Our Gospel this morning makes this very clear. We read in Matthew that Mary found herself “with child through the Holy Spirit.” Since she was with child prior to being married to Joseph and going to live with him, it is easy to see why Joseph initially reacted in the way he did, seeking to break off their betrothal until what had happened was made known to him by a divine messenger. While confident, no doubt, that God is trustworthy, it is difficult to imagine that Mary experienced uncertainty, anxiety, and even some fear about her predicament, especially about how it might appear to others. It is quite clear from this passage that the fact she was with child “through the Holy Spirit” was known only to Mary and Joseph. It is safe to assume that everybody else thought, as Mary became more visibly pregnant, the child she was carrying and gave birth to, was Joseph's child.

What does this mean for us poor banished children of Eve? As all mysteries of the faith it means many things. However, in basic terms, it means that by recognizing Mary’s crucial role in the economy of salvation, we also recognize her as a model for our own faith. It is no exaggeration to say that Mary was the first Christian due to her acknowledgement of Jesus, her Son, as the Messiah promised to and long awaited by Israel. Her magnificat clearly indicates this when she concludes her hymn of praise: “He has come to the help of His servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy. The promise he made to Abraham and his children forever.” Mary’s whole life was a “Yes” to God. She answered “Yes” to God without counting the cost, without worrying about the consequences because she trusted God, knowing that He is love and also knowing that God’s ways are not human ways. As followers of Jesus Christ we are called to do the same in all of the circumstances of our lives.

Secondly, now as then, Mary brings Jesus to us and us to Jesus. As Blessed Teresa of Calutta, also known as Mother Teresa, would say when asked by non-Catholic Christians about her devotion to Mary, “No Mary, no Jesus.” We can expand on this and say K-N-O-W Mary,
K-N-O-W Jesus. Therefore, we should trust in her intercession and call upon her often. For indeed she did a bear a son, just as the angel promised. Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, is Emmanuel; God with us. He is with us in no way more powerfully than in the Eucharist.

So, dear friends in Christ, pray the rosary today and, in observance of this Feast and in light of today's Gospel, despite the fact it is Friday, a day on which we usually meditate on the Sorrowful mysteries, contemplate the Joyful mysteries.

W before the turn

This is a more fully fleshed out version of an earlier post on early W. Again I hear echoes of Scott Dodge for nobody, but it is great to re-engage.

Below are the 7 basic propositions on which Ludwig Wittgenstein's earliest work, known in English as the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which he submitted as a dissertation at Cambridge University and on the basis of which he was awarded his doctorate, is based. The Latin title was suggested by G.E. Moore as the title for its publication in English. Moore was a friend of W's and a Cambridge University Philosophy professor. In naming the work Moore had in mind Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico Politicus.

The entire work is organized on the basis of these 7 propositions. Each proposition or sentence is numbered according to this system: 1; 1.1; 1.2; 1.2.3; 1.2.3.4- 2.1; 2.1.5, etc., all the way through to seven. Proposition 7 is unique in that it has no supporting propositions.

After being awarded his doctorate from Cambridge, W returned to his native Austria and trained to be an elementary school teacher. He taught school in lower Austria for several years. His turn began after the publication of the Tractatus and toward the end of his teaching career, during which we worked to develop, among other things, methods to teach kindergartners algebra. The structure, simplicity, and elegance of the Tractatus are obvious. Therein, as the saying goes, lies the rub. Is the world really reducible in that way? W came to see it was not.

Among the external factors in his turn, which resulted in his return to Cambridge and Philosophy, were the visits of F.P. Ramsey (brother of Michael Ramsey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961-1974). Ramsey was a genius who died at 26 and was a fellow of King's College Cambridge, who traveled to Austria to meet with W and discuss the Tractatus with him. A second identifiable external factor were his discussions and involvement with members of the Vienna Circle, a group of so-called logical positivists, chief among whom was Rudolf Carnap. Of particular note in these latter discussions was the verifiability principle, based on 4.024 of the Tractatus. Stated simply, W detected an inherent contradiction in this derived principle. Namely, what verified the principle of verifiability?

In any case, he ultimately returned to Cambridge and continued teaching Philosophy. Eventually he assumed the chair of Philosophy held by G.E. Moore upon Moore's retirement. While W's later phase began during the time between the publication of the Tractatus and his return to Cambridge, he continued wrestling with the fundamental issues engaged by these 7 propositions for the rest of his life, even rejecting proposition 2 , regarding atomic facts. In his later work he focused on the relationship between language and logic, a departure from his work leading up to and culminating with the Tractatus, which, taking its lead from Frege and Russell, explored the relationship of logic to mathematics.

The Seven Fundamental Propositions of the Tractatus

1. The world is everything that is the case.

2. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

My comment: Thought and picturing (i.e., seeing) remains problematic for W.

4. A thought is a proposition with sense.

My comment: This smacks of Russelian empiricism. Russellian for Bertrand Russell , W's tutor at Cambridge and sometime mentor, with whom he had a complete falling out. Russell, along with Alfred North Whitehead, did some great work (i.e., Principia Mathematica) in the 1910s, but, unlike W who remained engaged in the rough-and-tumble of Philosophy until the end of his life, really faded as a serious thinker. But then Russell died in 1970 at age 97. Whereas, W died at age 62 (three days after his 62nd birthday) in 1951.

5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.

My comment: An elementary proposition would be John has brown hair. The truth function of this elementary proposition consists solely in whether John actually has brown hair. Either he does or he does not (how one might verify if John has brown hair {i.e., looking at John to see if his hair is brown} introduces the problem of verifiability). Therefore, this elementary proposition is simply either true or false. In this way it is a truth function of itself.

6. The general form of a proposition is the general form of a truth-function.

My comment: An example of a general proposition, which is made up elementary propositions, is John has brown hair and blue eyes. This is a truth functional proposition. Let's call the proposition John has brown hair a and call the proposition John has blue eyes b. So, the conjunctive proposition a&b is truth functional because it is true just if a and b are true and it is false if either a or b is false. It is also false if both a and b are false. One can also detect a bit of the challenge presented to logic by language. John may have blue eyes, but have blonde hair. Nonetheless, logically, the initial general propositions a&b remains false. Disjunctions (i.e., Either John is a male or he is a female) are also truth functional. In this W is following the work of mathematician Gottlieb Frege, one of the founders of modern logic, who assigned truth values to propositions and derived truth functionality from these values in his explorations on the relationship between mathematics and logic. W's early concern was the same, but after his turn he began to focus, building on his early work as embodied in the Tractatus , on the relationship between logic and language and language and the world, which he came to see as being far more complex than these 7 propositions.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

My comment: This statement, ends the Tractatus and is not elaborated on further.

Year II 22nd Tuesday of Ordinary Time

This week and next I am conducting daily communion services at Holy Family Parish in South Ogden. This presents a rare opportunity for me, as a deacon, to preach the weekly lectionary. What follows is my homily for Tuesday, 5 September, fortified with useful links.

Readings: 1 Cor 2,10b-16; Ps 145, 8-14; Lk 4,31-37

Our first reading today, from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, seems a bit esoteric. Any attempt to describe in mere words matters of the spirit is bound to come across as a bit confusing and fall short of the reality of the experience. In this passage, Paul uses the analogy of how difficult, if not impossible, it is to know what is going through somebody else’s mind. We all know that that person alone is privy to his/her innermost thoughts and feelings. Sure, we have language to tell others what is on our mind. Our outward disposition, our body language, if you will, also indicates, at least to some extent, what we are thinking or feeling in a given situation. But we can also go to great lengths to conceal our inward disposition.

St. Paul uses this analogy to demonstrate that "no one knows what pertains to God except of the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 2,11). He mentions this not to demonstrate that what pertains to the Spirit of God is inaccessible, or unavailable to us. On the contrary! For in the very next sentence the apostle writes: "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God." Paul’s point is that we have received God’s Spirit for an express purpose; "so that we may understand the things freely given us by God" (1 Cor 2,12). Now what is given us freely by God is salvation by and through His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. As a result of this gift of grace, we have been anointed by the Holy Spirit so the you and I, by faith and in virtue of our baptism and being sealed with the Holy Spirit in confirmation, "have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2, 16).

One of the results of having the mind of Christ is being attentive to spiritual realities. It is easy to dismiss passages of Scripture, such as our Gospel today, in which Jesus casts out a demon, as having nothing to do with us and our advanced technological age. It remains true that the best trick Satan has up his sleeve is to convince us that he doesn't exist. So, while we may never experience anything as dramatic as this morning’s Gospel passage, we do experience the influence of the Evil One. Like a good policeman, our Adversary applies no more force than is necessary to accomplish his purpose, which is always to separate us from God and from each other. We experience this influence when we are hampered, like St. Paul (Rom 7,15) from doing the things, not only that we know we should do, but that we want to do. This influence is subtle and is manifested when doing the good we want to do and know we should do becomes hard. When little things, like praying each day, not being angry with or resentful of others, not nursing grudges, reaching out to those who need our help, etc., become like climbing Mt. Everest. In other words, when following Jesus seems inordinately difficult, like being afflicted with spiritual chronic fatigue syndrome, we can be certain that the enemy is at work.

We should not fear, however, because in the Holy Spirit, we have the same power to overcome evil as our Lord in today’s Gospel. Indeed, we “have the [very] mind of Christ!” This power of God unto salvation is a gift that we receive by faith. But, to borrow the words of Christian teacher Dallas Willard, “salvation is a life.” Therefore, to have recourse to the Holy Spirit in our hour of need, we must constantly strive to live in such a way that we know the mind of God. This means nothing more than knowing how God works in each of our lives individually. God relates to us all in a different way because, as our loving Father, He knows each one of us intimately. God knows us better than we know ourselves.

A disciple observes the disciplines of her/his Master. If we are to be disciples of Jesus, it stands to reason that in order to know the mind of God we must communicate with Him. We must pray, contemplate and meditate on God’s word given us in Scripture. If we truly believe the Scriptures are God’s revelation to us, we must know Scripture. The ancient practice of lectio divina can be a useful tool in each of our lives. One way to practice divine reading is by looking at the readings for each day’s Mass. Then, following this tried and true method of listening to and hearing God’s word for our own life, we go forth each day with a word from God we know is true. Lectio divina involves four steps:

1) The first stage is lectio (reading) where we read the Word of God, slowly and reflectively so that it sinks into us. Any passage of Scripture can be used for this way of prayer but the passage should not be too long. Lectio is very different from the speed reading which modern Christians apply to newspapers, books and even to the Bible. Lectio is reverential listening; listening both in a spirit of silence and of awe. We are listening for the still, small voice of God that will speak to us personally - not loudly, but intimately. In lectio we read slowly, attentively, gently listening to hear a word or phrase that is God's word for us this day.
2) The second stage is meditatio (reflection) where we think about the text we have chosen and ruminate upon it so that we take from it what God wants to give us. We might repeat it out loud or in our mind over and over, until we know it and begin to think about what is God saying to me in this word, in these words?
3) The third stage is oratio (response) where we leave our thinking aside and simply let our hearts speak to God. This response is inspired by our reflection on the Word of God.
4) The final stage of Lectio Divina is contemplatio (rest) where we let go not only of our own ideas, plans and meditations but also of our holy words and thoughts. We simply rest in the Word of God. We listen at the deepest level of our being to God who speaks within us with a still small voice. As we listen, we are gradually transformed from within. Obviously this transformation will have a profound effect on the way we actually live and the way we live is the test of the authenticity of our prayer. We must take what we read in the Word of God into our daily lives.

Prayer, as we see from lectio divina, includes at least as much, often more, listening as talking. It is absolutely essential to having the “mind of Christ.”

"The glory of God is man fully alive"- St. Irenaeus

"Dance Like a Monkey

In the spirit of Dr. Samuel Johnson who, after kicking a stone and stubbing his toe, said of Bishop George Berkeley's idealism, which can be summed up as "to be is to be perceived", "I refute him thus", I offer to Ann Coulter and her following, a new song from the once infamous, but now tame, New York Dolls, "Dance Like a Monkey."

Disciplines of Jesus' Disciples: The Fruits of Fasting

Fasting, as Richard Foster observed over 25 years ago in his Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, is much neglected among Christians. While things have improved somewhat over the intervening years, due in no small part to Foster's efforts and those of his associate, Dallas Willard, it is fair to say not many Christians regularly fast. This is a detriment to us both individually and collectively. Writing directly from my own experience, which I try to avoid most of the time, fasting brings a clarity and focus that comes to me in no other way. It is a discipline in which I allow my spirit and flesh to intersect. Among other things, fasting detoxifies us of all we tend to put in our system, it takes off that edge we often feel. It aids in prayer because, while fasting, whenever I feel hungry (and I do), I pray and ask God to teach me the truth expounded by Jesus during his 40 day fast; we do not "live by bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt 4,4). Of course, the Word, the final Word is Jesus Christ himself.

Fasting, through its physical effects combined with prayer, helps to me slow down and focus more clearly on relationships. It shows me how often I react instead of acting with intention. It aids me in examining my conscience because, at the end of the day, being a bit hungry and tired, I don't have the energy to deal with my usual excuses and internal machinations. Being more honest with myself enables me to be more honest with God, which, in turn, enables me to be more genuinely myself- the person God, our Father, made me, wants me, and graciously helps me to be.

In the Eucharist, our Lord becomes for us "the Bread of life." The words taught by the Word tell us this clearly: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" (6,51). Just this past Sunday, the twenty-first of Ordinary Time in this year of grace, we ended a three week recitation of John chapter six, known as the "Bread of life" discourse. By fasting, not only do we, as disciples imitate our Master, we take Jesus at his word that he doesn't merely have the bread of life to offer us, but that He himself is the Bread of life.

If all this reads like so much pseudo-spiritual clap-trap, I offer you a friendly and non-competitive challenge. I challenge you to try fasting. Don't do it all at once. Eat nothing and drink nothing, except water, for 12 hours (i.e., skip a meal). During this time, whenever you want something to eat or something to drink besides water, pray spontaneously, using your own words, or a formal prayer (i.e., Pater Noster, Gloria Patri, Anima Christi, Actus spei, Actus caritatis, etc.). Pray at the beginning of your fast and have an intention or intentions (i.e., something or someone you want to lift up to God). Then, after doing that once or twice a week for a week or two, fast for 24 hours (i.e., skip two meals). If at all possible end your fast by either going to confession (your intention could be to make a good confession, which requires a thorough examination of conscience) or by going to Mass, or go to confession and then Mass. I can think of no better way to break my fast than by eating the Bread of life and drinking the "true drink" from the cup of salvation.