The practice of fasting is having a moment in popular culture. It often feels as if every health and wellness advertisement, weight loss pitch or trendy celebrity is extolling the benefits of fasting, especially intermittent fasting. Recently, the New York Times personal health columnist, Jane E. Brody, published her analysis of the scientific claims of fasting stating, “I was skeptical, but it turns out there is something to be said for practicing a rather long diurnal fast…”
And yet we know that fasting is now and has been over millennia a central experience for many religious traditions and well represented in their sacred scriptures. For example, fasting for repentance, in praise and thanksgiving to God, for purification or for a desire to achieve greater connection to the sacred grounds many religious and philosophical journeys toward living a life of greater wisdom and seeking to understand calling, purpose and meaning.
It is in this context of the renewed popular awareness of fasting that I thought about my own preparations as a Catholic for the Ash Wednesday fast and the ongoing Lenten season. What does fasting have to teach us about our vocational wrestling? How might that be useful in working with students and members of religious communities on the development of their sense of meaning and purpose?
Continue reading “Letting Go and Embracing: Vocation and The Practice of Fasting”