Three recommendations…
- Talk to to tour pastor/priest adviser/confessor first…this a longstanding principle to get approval for something outside the “norm”…don’t trust yourself to decide if your intention/reasons are sound/valid…and don’t be too quick to say it will have no negative effect on your Christian Faith…let your priest counsel you…validate your intentions.
- Don’t tell anyone what you are doing other than your priest…it can be easily misconstrued and be somewhat scandalous…its not a normal to take a Christian practice and follow it in a non-Christian faith group’s liturgical season.
- If he approves, offer it for the conversion of Muslims to the Christian faith. This seems to me, to be a valid/good reason to do it.
All excellent ideas, Lancer. I will do that!
I have to say that part of my rationale is evangelism, not devotion as some of the other replies to my OP seem to think. While I can always improve my personal devotion, I’m trying to be a Christian witness. Toward that end, I would quote the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s “
Doctrinal Note on some Aspects of Evangelization”:
“Evangelization also involves a sincere dialogue that seeks to understand the reasons and feelings of others. Indeed, the heart of another person can only be approached in freedom, in love and in dialogue, in such a manner that the word which is spoken is not simply offered, but also truly witnessed in the hearts of those to whom it is addressed. This requires taking into account the hopes, sufferings and concrete situations of those with whom one is in dialogue. Precisely in this way, people of good will open their hearts more freely and share their spiritual and religious experiences in all sincerity. This experience of sharing, a characteristic of true friendship, is a valuable occasion for witnessing and for Christian proclamation.”
As to danger of conversion, I consider their faith a fabrication of caliphs Abu Bakr and Uthman from largely dyophysite Christian liturgy from the north and west of the Hijaz, Christian folk stories such as the apocryphal “Infancy Gospel of Thomas”, and polemic by (possibly dyophysite Christian) Muhammad against miaphysite Christology. I’ve posted on a number of these topics on Catholic Answers previously. I’ve gone head-to-head with proselytizing Muslims seeking to convert me on a fair number of occasions. But in my experience, when someone who’s trying to convert you starts hearing how their own faith is built on shaky foundations, they tend to retreat.
That being said, to me, the fast is a way to shine a light on the Catholic Church. Muslims criticize Christians almost entirely on the basis of a *sola fiideles *soteriology, which they attribute to St. Paul (based on an out-of-context reading of Romans 3 and Galatians 2). In my experience, Muslims don’t have a good understand of how in Catholicism, ecclesiology (the one body) is central to soteriology (see, for example, Romans 3; much of 1 Corinthians and 1 John; John 17; Revelation 21). This is because (unfamiliar to Muslims and many Christians), Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God, in fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures. Christ as the restored Davidic King of Israel, “a light unto the nations,” proclaimed justice for the poor (e.g., Matt 25), salvation for the Gentiles (e.g., Mark 7:24-30, Matt 15:21-28;26, John 11), and the Fatherhood of God. Perhaps in my fasting, I’ll have a chance to share this with Muslims… they tend to react allergically to statements of creed (e.g., the Trinity), so stories of Jesus (whom they revere) may be the way in. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light… so I’m just going to go with that!
