Thank you for your hospitality as we gather to reflect on fasting – a discipline honoured in both Christianity and Islam. I know that you are people for whom fasting is not theoretical but lived. It means embodied prayer, restraint, and being attentive to God. We meet on shared ground, though I’m conscious that, as Christians, we have much to learn from you.
Let me begin with a story that you will know. Abraham (Ibrahim) is sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looks up and sees three strangers approaching. Without hesitation, he runs toward them, bows low, and offers water, bread, rest. He does not first ask who they are or what they want. He makes space. And in that space, God is encountered.
At first glance, it’s a story about food, not fasting. Yet it holds something essential. Fasting, at its best, is not about deprivation. It is about making room – clearing the tent of our distractions so that God and neighbour may enter.
Uncomfortable teacher
In Christianity, fasting is most closely associated with Lent, the forty days before Easter. Unlike Ramadan, Lent is not commanded. It is a voluntary, communal season shaped by scripture and tradition. And its shape comes from another story.
Jesus (Isa), newly baptised, stands at the edge of his public life. The heavens have opened. A voice has declared him ‘beloved’. And then, instead of beginning his ministry, he goes into the wilderness to discern what it means to be beloved. Forty days. No crowds. No miracles. No applause. Just silence and hunger.
The desert is an uncomfortable teacher. When there is no distraction, you discover what you rely on. When bread is scarce, you discover what bread means.
The temptations Isa faces are subtle. Turn stones to bread. Prove yourself spectacular. Take power the easy way. They are not outrageous sins; they are shortcuts. They are ways of avoiding trust.
Hunger reveals dependence
Christians have long seen in this story a mirror. Lent becomes for us a small wilderness – not to escape the world, but to face ourselves honestly before God. When we fast, whether from food, comfort, or even from our mobile phones, we begin to notice our reflexes: how quickly we reach for what soothes, distracts, or reassures us. Hunger reveals dependence.
Moses (Musa) once told his people in the desert, “One does not live by bread alone.” Isa repeats the same words. Fasting is not a rejection of bread, but a remembering that life is sustained by something deeper.
There is another story Christians tell during Lent. In one of Isa’s parables, a religious leader stands in the temple in his fine clothes and prays loudly so that all can hear: “I fast twice a week and give away a tenth of what I earn.” It is impressive discipline. But nearby stands a tax collector who quietly says: “God, I am not worthy, be merciful to me.”
The twist in the story is that it is the second man who goes home justified. The problem with the first man, was not the fasting. It was that he let fasting feed his ego.
Abbas and Ammas
In the early centuries of Christianity, some men and women left the busy cities for the deserts of Egypt and Syria. They were called the Desert Fathers and Mothers – Abbas and Ammas. They fasted seriously. But warned constantly that discipline without humility becomes pride in religious clothing. Fasting, they believed, is a school of truth. It exposes what lies beneath our piety. It teaches us whether it is God that we seek – or admiration.
The prophet Isaiah (Ashiya) tells another story, this time told in the voice of God: “Is this the fast I choose? … Is it not to loose the bonds of injustice, to share your bread with the hungry?” Here, fasting turns outward. For Christians, fasting belongs with generosity. It belongs with reconciliation. It belongs with softened hearts.
In this, Christians recognise deep common ground with Muslims. Fasting trains attentiveness. It honours the body as part of spiritual life. It cultivates restraint and self-knowledge. It pairs hunger with prayer and generosity.
Response to grace
There are differences. Christian fasting is less uniform, less regulated. Practices vary widely – some abstain from certain foods (mostly chocolate!), some from luxuries, some from habits of consumption. Theologically, we often frame fasting as being done not to earn favour, but as a response to grace already given. It is participation in the life of Isa, who fasted in trust.
But the shared instinct is clear: in a world shaped by excess and distraction, restraint can become witness. A story from a Desert Father helps illuminate this. Abba Arsenius once prayed: “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.” And he heard a voice reply, “Flee, be silent, pray always.”
It sounds like withdrawal. But those who later sought out Arsenius discovered something else: that his fasting had made him attentive. His silence had made him patient. His restraint had made him wise.
Amma Syncletica said something similar: “There are those who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the city; and those in the city who live as if they were in the desert.” The desert, she meant, is not geography. It is posture and attitude. You can live in a busy town or city and still cultivate inner space.
Discover sufficiency
That may be where fasting speaks most urgently today. You and I, we live in cultures of constant consumption – of food, information, opinion, noise. To fast, even modestly, is to say that human life does not consist in consumption alone.
Lent, however, is never an end in itself. It moves toward Easter. Christian fasting is shaped by hope. It trusts that when we relinquish illusions, something truer can emerge. When we let go of excess, we may discover sufficiency. My wife and I have some Arabic calligraphy near our front door at home, which translated means: ‘To give, is to receive’.
And so, we return to where we started, with Ibrahim at the tent. He made space without knowing who he would receive. His openness became encounter. Fasting forms that same posture – loosening control, creating room, standing in humility before God.
When Christians and Muslims fast, pray, and give generously, we bear witness – differently, yet recognisably – that God is worthy of our attention, that discipline can serve freedom, and that hunger can deepen compassion.
Our practices are not identical. Nor should they be. But they echo one another in reverence. In making space, we may discover that God has already been waiting there for us. And that hunger, honestly faced, becomes hospitality.
Fast from…
I want to finish with these words from Pope Francis:
Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words and be silent so that you can listen.
Thank you
‘Making Space: Stories of Lent and Fasting’ was delivered by Ian Banks at the Dar us Salam Centre in Bury at an Iftar on Sunday, 8th March 2026.
Reference:
Click to access Columban-Sr-Ash-Wednesday-Thoughts-for-Lent.pdf