discussion on Fasting

More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. … We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, ...

On a chilly morning in March 1522, in the city of Zurich, the printer Christoph Froschauer sat down with his workers and shared a plate of sausages, in open defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, which...

Since the seventh century, the Western church has observed the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday—the fortieth day before Easter, not counting Sundays. In addition to providing ample time for self-examina...

So in the last three years, in order to reorient myself and head back onto the narrow way, I’ve given up social media and/or the internet for Lent. At first it’s agonizing. I’m like a caffeine or nico...

Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch humanist scholar and Catholic priest. His works were so significant he was given the nickname “Prince of the Humanists'' and “the crowning glory of the Christian...

It’s been eight years since I started using Instagram. May 7, 2011, to be exact. We’d moved to the Upper East Side of New York City the previous summer, and though many of my friends were becoming mor...

In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...

Our culture is afraid of grief, but not just because it is afraid of death. That is natural and normal, a proper reaction to the Last Enemy. Our culture is afraid because it seems to be afraid of the ...

New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N. T. Wright recalls being at a party once when someone decided to read a portion of the seventeenth-century Prayer Book for laughs. The Prayer Book includes ...

In the midst of an experiment to become more attuned to darkness, author and pastor Barbara Brown Taylor decided to spend time outside as dark sets in: According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, eve...

Reading Aquinas, I found the vices to have revealing and illuminating power. By contrast, many voices in contemporary culture, unfortunately, dismiss, redefine, psychologize, or trivialize them. Some...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

In this excerpt from a sermon on the Lord’s Supper delivered by Augustine of Hippo to a group of Catechumens, (a Christian believer preparing for Baptism) the great bishop compares the process in whic...

Given life’s unpredictability and the inevitability of pain and hardship, what do we do when that pain and hardship show up on our doorsteps? In roughly AD 270, there was a man in Lower Egypt named An...

Not long ago, just as the season of Lent had got underway, a friend complained to me, “I know it’s Lent, but where’s the joy?” It is easy to understand why Lent is often misunderstood as a period of s...

When the first Christians were trying to decide whether Gentile Christians should keep Jewish dietary laws, they weren’t just quibbling over doctrine. Just like we do, ancients were transferring their...

A week beforehand, the high priest was put into seclusion—taken away from his home and into a place where he was completely alone. Why? So he wouldn’t accidentally touch or eat anything unclean. Clean...

Dave Nessia was starving himself to death while hoarding food. It was on the hit reality show Alone. After 73 days alone in the wilderness, he had lost 40 lbs. and his blood pressure had fallen to 80/...

In The Phantom Tollbooth , there is a special kind of food called “subtraction stew.” Produced by a mathemagician, this stew makes you hungrier after you’ve eaten it. Our three main characters don’t ...

The more I use stuff to fill up my hungers, the more distance I put between God and myself. And as I continue to fill up my infinite hungers with finite things (when I run through the Starbucks drive-...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

Numerous modern thinkers have noted the spiritual nature of eating meals in community. I wonder if this is why “Sunday Brunch” is such a popular alternative to attending church services. The Orthodox ...

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

In recent decades, many Christians have tried to make sense of the tension between our bodies and spirits by swinging to the opposite pole. Instead of saying, “The body doesn’t matter,” they have said...

What, for example, does it mean to celebrate the Eucharist as food (bread and wine) in a place where we are increasingly obsessed with and yet deeply afraid and ashamed of food, where we idolize and d...

I’d like us to begin with a little scene setting. So, I’m going to invite everyone who is comfortable to close their eyes. And I am transporting you to Rome, it’s approximately 60 AD. You are a commo...

Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our...

Ronald Rolheiser recounted an old Jewish folk tale. A young man, aspiring to be holy, approached his rabbi and said, “Rabbi, I think I have achieved sanctity. I fast from sunrise to sundown, work hard...

One rare but powerful item of discipline is the requirement that the recruit of the company undertake a personal experience of solitude at least once a month. This is patterned consciously on the expe...

Pilgrimage is a marinating process. The Bible is bursting with people who traveled to places of retreat where God seasoned and tenderized them, preparing them to take the next step of the journey. Mos...