We have been created to praise, reverence and serve God and so to save our souls. All things else on the face of the earth have been created for us to help us to attain this purpose. This teaching of St Ignatius has had a profound influence on many Catholics since he first composed his Spiritual Exercises. Reflecting on the religious practice of fasting, today's readings remind us to reflect how do we use the other things on the earth which have been given to help us to attain the purpose of our creation, the praise, reverence and service of God and the salvation of our soul.

On a first level, of course, fasting is abstinence from food and drink. Isaiah reminds us today that fasting should be an interior reality as well as an external one. So, too, fasting will mean abstaining from other things besides food. Abstinence can then be the equivalent of temperance in all things, in every use of the world's resources. The modern world encourages substance dependency and other forms of dependency: alcohol, drugs, riches, fame, the "good life". Fasting should lead to a liberation of the body and the spirit from such slavery.