McGrath Institute Blog

I started daily 16-hour fasts in July of 2019 after researching the benefits of intermittent fasting. When I was presented with a concrete plan for turning fasting into a more intentional spiritual practice, I discovered something much more rewarding than physical discipline.

Editorial Note: This excerpt is taken from an essay by the same name originally published at Church Life Journal on March 25, 2019.

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees him nothing, twice at once, who is all;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall,
Her maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen;
At once a son is promised her, and gone,
Gabriel gives Christ to her, he her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th'abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one—
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east—
Of th’angel's Ave, and Consummatum est...
—John Donne, "Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day."

This Ash Wednesday, here are three brief, thought-provoking articles that will hopefully help you enter more intentionally into this season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

“What are you giving up for Lent?” In my youth, this question was fraught with the anxiety of choosing which I would rather give up for forty days: ice cream or chocolate. More recently though, I have tried to embrace the ascetic element of this liturgical season as an opportunity to examine how God is inviting me to let go and who God is inviting me to become.

I started daily 16-hour fasts in July of 2019 after researching the benefits of intermittent fasting. When I was presented with a concrete plan for turning fasting into a more intentional spiritual practice, I discovered something much more rewarding than physical discipline.