A Question of Fasting
Written by mcgee on April 1st, 2006Well, the month of fasting for Bahá’ís has been over for a couple of weeks now, but Lent still has a couple of weeks left, so it’s timely for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to publish this article titled “A Question of Fasting” that surveys faiths and their fasts, included are three statements on fasting — one from a Catholic priest, one from an Orthodox Rabbi, and this, from a member of the Minneapolis Bahá’í community:
Fasting is an important part of the Baha’i faith. The fast is fundamentally spiritual in character. The fasting period, which lasts 19 days, involves complete abstention from food and drink from sunrise until sunset. It is essentially a period of meditation, prayer and spiritual regeneration, during which believers strive to make the necessary readjustments in their inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in their soul. Fasting is a symbolic reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires. Physical fasting is a symbol of that abstinence. There is much evidence to show that a periodical fast such as is enjoined by the Baha’i teachings is beneficial as a measure of physical hygiene, but just as the reality of the Baha’i fast does not lie in the consumption of physical food, but in the commemoration of God, which is our spiritual food, so the reality of the Baha’i fast does not consist in abstention from physical food, but in the abstention from the desires and lusts of the flesh, and in severance from all save God.
For those of us who came into the Baha'i Faith through the ever popular 
