Fasting can get out of hand. St. Ignatius, inflamed by his recent conversion, sought to make up for his past sins by living in a cave in Manresa. He famously took it too far, inflicting harm on himself that never healed. From such stories, we might be tempted to identify all desires for penance as sin-obsessed or as complete rejections of the good things God gives us.
Such a conclusion would unfortunately bring us into conflict with the example of Jesus, whose forty days in the desert were far more intense than any of our Lenten practices. But it is obvious that Jesus’s approach is different from St. Ignatius’s. The difference lies in the event that compelled him into the wilderness: his baptism, where he heard from his Father, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
For the young Ignatius, penance was an attempt to forget. His past life, his sins, his mistakes—he wanted nothing of them. For the good Lord, penance was an exercise to remember. “You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” That blessing from his Father, the announcement of his mission, the great affirmation of love—Christ wanted these to sink in deeply, for he knew that his identity as the eternal Son was most important and therefore would be most often attacked: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread… If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” and three years later, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Amid those temptations, I suspect Jesus reminded himself of those words he heard from his Father, those same words which for forty days fed him in the desert.