Ash Wednesday

Aquinas on fasting:

The mean of virtue is measured not according to quantity but according to right reason, as stated in Ethic. ii, 6. [ie in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics]. Now reason judges it expedient, on account of some special motive, for a man to take less food than would be becoming to him under ordinary circumstances, for instance in order to avoid sickness, or in order to perform certain bodily works with greater ease: and much more does reason direct this to the avoidance of spiritual evils and the pursuit of spiritual goods. Yet reason does not retrench so much from one's food as to refuse nature its necessary support: thus Jerome says: "It matters not whether thou art a long or a short time in destroying thyself, since to afflict the body immoderately, whether by excessive lack of nourishment, or by eating or sleeping too little, is to offer a sacrifice of stolen goods."  In like manner right reason does not retrench so much from a man's food as to render him incapable of fulfilling his duty. Hence Jerome says... "Rational man forfeits his dignity, if he sets fasting before chastity, or night-watchings before the well-being of his senses."
[...]
The fasting of nature, in respect of which a man is said to be fasting until he partakes of food, consists in a pure negation, wherefore it cannot be reckoned a virtuous act. Such is only the fasting of one who abstains in some measure from food for a reasonable purpose. Hence the former is called natural fasting [jejunium jejuni] while the latter is called the faster's fast [jejunium jejunantis] because he fasts for a purpose.

[STh IIaIIae q.147 a.1 here.]

Explanation: One eats normally to sustain human  nature. In some circumstances, it is reasonable to reduce consumption of food below this normal intake for some special purpose (say, to avoid sickness). Given our supernatural end is superior to our natural end, it is reasonable to reduce intake of food to advance our supernatural end. It is not virtuous, however, to do this to the extent of damaging our body.

Simply going without food isn't virtuous. It is only virtuous when done to fulfil a (good) purpose of the faster.


Picture: Bernardino Pinturicchio - Saint Jerome in the Wilderness  [Wiki page here.]

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