The Sacred Art of Fasting: Preparing to Practice
Open your mind and heart and discover how the sacred art of fasting can strengthen your spiritual appetite
"Fasting as a religious act increases our sensitivity to that mystery always and everywhere present to us…. It is an invitation to awareness, a call to compassion for the needy, a cry of distress, and a song of joy. It is a discipline of self-restraint, a ritual of purification, and a sanctuary for offerings of atonement. It is a wellspring for the spiritually dry, a compass for the spiritually lost, and inner nourishment for the spiritually hungry."
—from chapter 9
Though fasting is practiced in some form by nearly every faith tradition throughout the world, it is often seen as scary or something only for monastic life. But fasting doesn't have to be intimidating. And it doesn’t have to mean going weeks without food.
The Sacred Art of Fasting invites you to explore the practical approaches, spiritual motivations, and physical benefits of this ancient practice by looking at the ways it is observed in several faith traditions. Inspiring personal reflections, helpful advice, and encouragement from people who practice fasting answer your questions, allay your fears, and reveal how you too can safely incorporate fasting into your spiritual life.
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Book details
- Author
- Thomas Ryan
- Imprint
- SkyLight Paths, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Formats
- Paperback, Hardcover
- Subjects
- Religion › Spirituality
- Topics
- spiritual practices · comparative religion · faith traditions · self-discipline · religious rituals · spirituality
- ISBN-13
- 9781594730788 (Paperback)9781683364269 (Hardcover)
About the author
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS was a Catholic priest, Jesuit, and university teacher who wrote poetry throughout his adult life. He is the author of God’s Grandeur.
Hopkins was born in England in 1844 and converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism before joining the Society of Jesuits in 1868. Though he continued writing after his conversion, he burned most of his early poems and published very little during his lifetime. The first collection of his poems, edited by his friend Robert Bridges, appeared in 1918, nearly three decades after Hopkins died in 1889.