Fasting is one of the oldest and most universal practices of religious humanity, and one of the most misunderstood today. For many, fasting suggests a diet, a performance, or a leftover austerity from another age. For the Catholic faith it is something quite different: a spiritual act by which a person voluntarily goes without food to make the heart freer, more attentive to God and more united with the poor. In the Church's tradition, fasting has never been an end in itself: it is a means at the service of conversion.
Christ himself fasted forty days in the desert before beginning his mission (Mt 4:1-2)[1], and he taught his disciples not whether they would fast, but how: "When you fast...", he says, not "if you fast" (Mt 6:16-18)[2]. With prayer and almsgiving, fasting forms the classic triad of penance that Scripture and the Fathers constantly link together (Tob 12:8)[3]. The Catechism recalls it: "Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms: fasting, prayer, almsgiving."[4]
Why fast, then? The Catholic tradition answers with three converging reasons, masterfully summed up by Saint Thomas Aquinas: to bridle the lusts of the flesh, to raise the mind toward God, and to make satisfaction for sins[5]. Far from despising the body or food — the Church has always condemned that error — fasting is a training of interior freedom: learning to say no to a good desire in order to say yes to God more fully.
This article explains the deep meaning of fasting, traces its biblical teaching from the Old Testament to Christ, presents the doctrine and the concrete rules of the Catholic Church today, and offers practical paths for rediscovering a fast lived not as a constraint, but as a road of joy.
What is Christian fasting?
Before asking why to fast, one must know what fasting is — and what it is not. Everyday language blends several neighboring realities which the Catholic tradition carefully distinguishes.
Fasting, abstinence and mortification: three words to distinguish
Fasting in the strict sense means reducing the quantity of food: according to the current Latin discipline, a single full meal in the day, to which may be added two light collations which together do not equal a second meal[6]. Abstinence means giving up a kind of food — traditionally meat — without reducing the total quantity. Mortification is broader still: any voluntary privation (of a lawful pleasure, a comfort, a distraction) offered to God out of love.
These distinctions are not legal subtleties. They structure the whole penitential life of the Church: one may be bound to abstinence without being bound to fasting, and the fast of the heart can extend far beyond food. The Eucharistic fast is something else again: an abstention of at least one hour before Communion, out of reverence for the Body of Christ (CIC, can. 919)[7].
Fasting is not a diet: the spiritual dimension
The great modern temptation is to reduce fasting to a wellness technique. Christian fasting brings simple bodily effects — it rests the body, it disciplines the appetite — but its purpose is radically different. One does not fast as a Christian in order to lose weight or to feel efficient, but in order to turn toward God.
This is why a fast without prayer or charity remains, spiritually speaking, sterile. The prophet Isaiah already hammers the point: God rejects fasting unaccompanied by justice (Is 58)[8]. And Saint John Cassian, passing on the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, warns against the illusion of an asceticism turned in on itself:
"Less is gained by fasting than is lost by a fit of anger; and the profit drawn from reading does not equal the harm incurred by contempt for a brother. It is fitting, therefore, to refer secondary things — fasts, vigils, solitude and meditation on the Scriptures — to our principal end, that is, to purity of heart, which is charity." — Saint John Cassian, Conferences, I[9]
Fasting is therefore an instrument, ordered to something greater than itself. But an instrument which tradition holds to be precious, even indispensable — for it acts where words alone cannot reach: in the flesh, in habits, in the will.
Why fast? The deep reasons
The question "why fast?" received its clearest answer from Saint Thomas Aquinas, who gathers into three ends all the patristic wisdom on the subject[10]. These three reasons do not exclude one another: they complete and reinforce each other.
To master the flesh and free the heart
The first reason is ascetic: fasting bridles concupiscence. By giving up a lawful pleasure, man takes back the government of himself. Food, comfort, pleasure are not evil; but the disordered appetite they arouse can enslave. To fast is to remind the flesh that it is servant and not master. Saint Thomas writes it plainly: fasting serves first "to bridle the lusts of the flesh"[11].
The Catechism takes up this logic in presenting the fourth precept of the Church: the days of penance "ensure times of ascesis and penance which prepare us for the liturgical feasts and help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart"[12]. Self-mastery is not withdrawal, but a conquest of freedom: whoever knows how to fast is no longer dominated by his cravings.
To raise the soul toward God
The second reason is contemplative. Lightening the body lightens the mind. Saint Thomas observes that fasting is practised "that the mind may rise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things"[13]. Experience confirms it: a heavy stomach weighs on attention and prayer; a body held in check becomes more available to God.
This is why, in Scripture, fasting accompanies almost every great moment of prayer and discernment: Moses fasts before receiving the Law (Ex 34:28)[14], Daniel before receiving revelation (Dan 10:2-3)[15], the Church of Antioch fasts before sending Paul and Barnabas on mission (Acts 13:2-3)[16]. Fasting hollows out a space in man which God comes to fill. The venerable Marthe Robin, who lived for decades with almost no food, made no end of it, however:
"Let us work tirelessly, unceasingly, to conquer our nature, and we shall advance more swiftly on the beautiful road of God than by the secret satisfaction of fasting on bread and water." — Venerable Marthe Robin, Journal[17]
To make reparation for sin and do penance
The third reason is expiatory: fasting serves "to satisfy for sins"[18]. The sinner who has yielded to ease freely accepts a privation, as a sign of repentance and reparation. It is not that God demands suffering; it is that wounded love wants to make amends, and the body shares in the conversion of the heart.
All the Bible bears witness to this penitential fast: Nineveh fasts to escape punishment (Jon 3:5-10)[19], the people fast on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29-31), Joel calls to conversion:
"Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments." — Book of Joel, 2:12-13[20]
The Catechism recalls moreover that interior penance "does not aim first at outward works, sackcloth and ashes, fasting and mortification, but at conversion of the heart"[21]. The outward fast has value only as sign and instrument of this interior conversion.
To unite oneself to the Passion of Christ
To these three Thomistic ends, Christian spirituality adds a properly evangelical dimension: to fast is to unite oneself to the suffering Christ. When asked why his disciples did not fast like those of John the Baptist, Jesus answered by pointing to his own coming Passion:
"Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." — Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 9:15[22]
The Christian fast is thus turned toward the paschal mystery: it prolongs in the body the mourning of absence and the thirst for the Bridegroom's return. This is the meaning of the Good Friday fast and of all Friday penance, "in memory of the death of the Lord"[23].
Fasting never goes alone: prayer and almsgiving
Tradition is unanimous: fasting in isolation is suspect. It bears fruit only when joined to prayer, which turns it toward God, and to almsgiving, which turns it toward neighbor. Saint Peter Chrysologus, Doctor of the Church, said it in a formula that has remained famous:
"There are three acts, brethren, three acts by which faith stands firm, devotion endures, virtue abides: prayer, fasting, mercy. For fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the life of fasting. Let no one divide them: the three cannot be separated." — Saint Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 43[24]
This unity of the three works explains why the Church, in reforming the discipline of fasting, has always insisted that privation never be separated from concrete charity. What is saved by fasting must feed the poor: otherwise, as Isaiah says, fasting becomes a facade which God rejects.
What does the Bible say about fasting?
Fasting runs through all of Scripture, from Genesis to the apostolic Church. Far from being a late invention, it appears as man's spontaneous reflex before God: in trial, mourning, supplication, preparation for a mission.
Fasting in the Old Testament
The great figures of the Old Testament fast at the turning points of their history. Moses remains forty days on Sinai, "eating no bread and drinking no water," before receiving the tables of the Law (Ex 34:28; Deut 9:9)[25]. Elijah walks forty days and forty nights, strengthened by a single loaf, to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8)[26]. Queen Esther orders a three-day fast before risking her life to save her people (Est 4:16)[27]. Daniel fasts three weeks before receiving a great vision (Dan 10:2-3)[28].
Fasting is also collective and penitential: on the Day of Atonement, all Israel "afflicts itself" by fasting (Lev 16:29-31). And when the prophet Jonah announces the ruin of Nineveh, the whole city — men and beasts — covers itself in sackcloth and fasts; faced with this repentance, God suspends the punishment (Jon 3:5-10)[29]. Fasting appears here as the bodily language of conversion.
The true fast according to Isaiah 58
But the Old Testament also denounces, with rare vigor, hypocritical fasting. Chapter 58 of Isaiah is the great critical text: God refuses the fast of those who, on the same day, oppress their workers and quarrel. The fast he accepts is inseparable from justice:
"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him?" — Book of Isaiah, 58:6-7[30]
This text founds the whole Christian spirituality of fasting: privation has meaning only when turned toward God and toward the poor. It is exactly what Peter Chrysologus will teach in inseparably linking fasting and mercy.
Jesus fasts forty days in the desert
The New Testament opens the public life of Jesus with a great fast. Immediately after his baptism, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness... and he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry" (Mt 4:1-2)[31]. It is in this accepted weakness that he confronts and vanquishes the Tempter, opposing each temptation with the Word of God.
The Catechism stresses the scope of this founding fast: "The Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert by the solemn forty days of Lent."[32] Lent, which prepares Easter, is entirely modelled on these forty days. Christ does not fast to expiate — he is without sin — but to identify himself with sinful man, to open for him the road to victory over evil, and to show us that the spirit triumphs when the flesh is held in check.
The teaching of Jesus: fasting in secret
Jesus takes it for granted that his disciples will fast; he only corrects its spirit. Against the ostentation of the hypocrites who "disfigure their faces" to be seen, he prescribes the hidden fast:
"But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." — Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 6:17-18[33]
Authentic fasting is therefore humble, discreet, disinterested. It seeks not the gaze of men but that of the Father. This discretion guarantees its truth: a fast put on display is already rewarded by the vanity it feeds.
Why Christians fast: "when the bridegroom is taken away"
The disciples of Jesus did not fast during his public life, which scandalized the Pharisees. Jesus explains it with the image of the wedding (Mt 9:14-15)[34]: one does not mourn while the Bridegroom is present. But he announces that he will be "taken away," and that then his disciples will fast. The Christian fast is thus born of the Passion: it is waiting for the Bridegroom, thirst for his presence, communion with his Cross. This is what radically distinguishes the Church's fast from any purely human asceticism.
"This kind cannot be driven out except by prayer and fasting"
After his disciples failed before a particularly tenacious evil spirit, Jesus declares, according to many manuscripts: "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting" (Mk 9:29; cf. Mt 17:21)[35]. Textual criticism notes that the words "and fasting" are absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts of Mark and may be an ancient liturgical addition[36]; but the Church's spiritual tradition has always recognized in them a proven truth: certain spiritual combats require, beyond prayer, the reinforcement of fasting. The constant practice of saintly exorcists and spiritual masters confirms this insight.
Fasting in the apostolic Church
The first Christians immediately integrated fasting into their life. Before sending Paul and Barnabas, the community of Antioch "worshipped the Lord and fasted" (Acts 13:2-3)[37]. Paul and Barnabas, in turn, appoint elders in each church "with prayer and fasting" (Acts 14:23)[38]. Saint Paul mentions his own fasts among the proofs of his ministry (2 Cor 6:5; 11:27)[39], and recommends to married couples a temporary abstinence "to devote themselves to prayer" (1 Cor 7:5). From the beginning, fasting accompanies the prayer, the mission and the discernment of the Church.
What does the Church teach about fasting?
With Scripture and tradition behind her, the Church has developed a doctrine and a discipline of fasting. She always distinguishes the principle — penance is of divine precept — from the modalities — the detail of days and rules, which she can adapt according to times and places.
A practice as old as humanity
The Fathers of the Church trace fasting back to paradise. Saint Basil the Great, in his famous Homily on Fasting, sees in the forbidden tree the first law of fasting given to man:
"Honor the antiquity of fasting, which began with the first man and was prescribed in the earthly paradise. Adam received this first precept: You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree. This prohibition is a law of fasting and abstinence." — Saint Basil the Great, Homily on Fasting[40]
Beyond exegesis, the insight is strong: the first disobedience was an intemperance, a refusal to fast; reparation therefore passes, symbolically, through fasting. The Greek and Latin Fathers — Basil, Augustine, Leo the Great, John Chrysostom, Peter Chrysologus — make the Lenten fast a centerpiece of Christian life.
Fasting, expression of interior penance
The Catechism of the Catholic Church situates fasting within the broader whole of conversion. It first recalls the fundamental triad:
"The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God and to others." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1434[41]
It then specifies the high points: "The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice."[42] Fasting is therefore not an optional private devotion: it belongs to the very rhythm of the Church's prayer.
The current rules of fasting and abstinence
The discipline in force derives from the apostolic constitution Paenitemini of Paul VI (17 February 1966)[43], taken up by the 1983 Code of Canon Law (can. 1249-1253)[44]. The table below summarizes the obligations of the Latin rite.
| Day or period | Obligation | Who is concerned |
|---|---|---|
| Ash Wednesday | Fasting and abstinence | Fasting: ages 18-59; abstinence: from age 14 |
| Good Friday | Fasting and abstinence | Fasting: ages 18-59; abstinence: from age 14 |
| Every Friday of the year | Abstinence (or another penance according to the episcopal conferences) | From age 14 |
| Lent | Strengthened spirit of penance | All the faithful |
| Before Communion | Eucharistic fast of at least one hour | All communicants |
Three points deserve clarification.
Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
These are the only two days on which the Church imposes both fasting and abstinence. Paenitemini defines fasting as allowing "a single full meal a day," without forbidding light food in the morning and evening[45]. These two days frame Lent and Holy Week: one opens it, the other culminates at the foot of the Cross.
Friday abstinence
Every Friday recalls the death of the Lord. Canon law prescribes abstinence from meat, but allows episcopal conferences to substitute another form of penance (work of charity, privation, exercise of piety)[46]. The spirit remains: to make Friday a penitential day, even when the form varies from country to country.
The ages concerned
The 1983 Code sets the thresholds: "The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year; the law of fasting binds all adults until the beginning of their sixtieth year."[47] Majority being set at eighteen, fasting therefore obliges from 18 to 59. The same canon adds that pastors will see to forming in the "true meaning of penance" those whom age dispenses.
The Eucharistic fast
Distinct from the penitential fast, the Eucharistic fast prepares one to receive Communion. Canon law asks the communicant to abstain "for at least one hour before holy Communion, from any food and drink, with the exception of water and medicine" (can. 919)[48]. The sick, the elderly and those who care for them are dispensed. This rule, formerly much stricter (fasting from midnight), was lightened by Pius XII then reduced to one hour by Paul VI. Its meaning remains intact: to mark by the body the reverence due to the Body of Christ.
Fasting is not self-contempt: the Catholic balance
The Church has always condemned the excesses of asceticism — Manichaeism, Encratism, rigorism — which despise the body or food as evil in themselves. Creation is good; fasting does not deny this goodness, it subordinates it. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, beggar and great penitent, illustrates the stern logic of mortification: according to his biographer Albéric de Palmaert, he held that the heart must make itself hard as bronze toward oneself, chastise the body by fasting and abstinence, and tame the inclinations of corrupt nature[49].
But this rigor toward oneself has meaning only in charity toward others. The criterion remains Cassian's: everything — "fasts, vigils, solitude" — must serve "purity of heart, which is charity"[50]. A fast that made one hard, irritable or proud would miss its goal. The Imitation of Christ sums it up by inviting us to fight idleness more than gluttony alone: "Never be entirely idle, but read, or write, or pray, or meditate, or work at something useful."[51]
How to fast well today?
The practical question remains: how to give fasting back its place in an ordinary Christian life, without falling either into rigorism or into pure and simple abandonment?
Start small, fast with joy
The first advice of the spiritual masters is measure. Better a small faithful fast than a great presumptuous one soon abandoned. One can begin by seriously keeping the two prescribed days, then gradually add a Friday penance, a fast before a great feast, a privation offered for an intention. Jesus asks for a fast with "washed face" (Mt 6:17)[52]: without displayed sadness, in the peace and even the joy of love that gives itself.
The fast of the heart: tongue, screens, judgments
Tradition readily extends fasting beyond food. One can "fast" from useless words, backbiting, screens, complaints, anger. Cassian already recalled it: a food fast ruined by a fit of anger is a bad bargain[53]. The fast of the heart — holding back one's tongue, suspending a judgment, renouncing an invasive distraction — is often more demanding, and more fruitful, than the fast of the belly.
The spiritual fruits of fasting
Well lived, fasting bears fruits which the whole tradition attests: an interior freedom regained over desires, a prayer more lively and pure, an increased compassion for those who lack necessities, a reparation offered for one's sins and for the world. It prepares the heart for the great feasts and makes it available for spiritual combats. Above all, it unites us to Christ who fasted, suffered and conquered.
Fasting, in the end, is not depriving oneself for the sake of depriving oneself. It is making hunger a prayer, lack a gift, and the body itself a road toward God. It is learning, as Scripture says, that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4)[54].
To go further
Notes and References
Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 4:1-2 and 4:4 (Jerusalem Bible). Christ's forty-day fast in the desert, followed by the three temptations, opens his public life; parallels in Mk 1:12-13 and Lk 4:1-13.
1 31 54Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 6:16-18 (Jerusalem Bible). Teaching of the Sermon on the Mount on the hidden fast, framed by the teachings on almsgiving (6:1-4) and prayer (6:5-15).
2 33 52Book of Tobit, 12:8: "Prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving and righteousness..." (Jerusalem Bible). Classic verse founding the prayer-fasting-almsgiving triad, taken up by the Catechism § 1434.
3Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1434, Mame/Plon, 1992 (cf. Tob 12:8; Mt 6:1-18). The three forms of interior penance: fasting, prayer, almsgiving.
4 41Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, question 147, article 1. Fasting is ordered to three ends: bridling the lusts of the flesh; raising the mind more freely to the contemplation of the highest realities; making satisfaction for sins. Reference edition: Summa Theologiae, vol. 3, Éditions du Cerf, 1985.
5 10 11 13 18Paul VI, apostolic constitution Paenitemini, 17 February 1966, norms III-IV. Fasting allows "a single full meal a day"; abstinence forbids meat; law of fasting from 21 to 60 (since brought to 18-59 by the 1983 Code), law of abstinence from age 14. Full text: vatican.va.
6 43 451983 Code of Canon Law, canon 919 § 1: "A person who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before holy Communion from any food and drink, with the exception of water and medicine." Full text: vatican.va.
7 48Book of Isaiah, 58:6-7 (Jerusalem Bible). The fast accepted by God is inseparable from justice and charity toward the poor.
8 30Saint John Cassian, Conferences, I (Conference of Abbot Moses on the end and goal of the monk), Sources Chrétiennes no. 42 bis, Éditions du Cerf, 2008, p. 101. Fasting and asceticism are subordinated to purity of heart, that is, to charity.
9 50 53Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2043 (fourth precept of the Church; cf. CIC, can. 1249-1251). The days of penance "help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart."
12Book of Exodus, 34:28 and Deuteronomy, 9:9 (Jerusalem Bible). Moses fasts forty days and forty nights on Sinai before receiving the tables of the Law.
14 25Book of Daniel, 10:2-3 (Jerusalem Bible). Daniel fasts three weeks ("no delicacies, no meat, no wine") before receiving a great vision.
15 28Acts of the Apostles, 13:2-3 (Jerusalem Bible). The Church of Antioch fasts and prays before sending Paul and Barnabas on mission.
16 37Venerable Marthe Robin, Journal: December 1929 – November 1932, Éditions Foyer de Charité, 2012, p. 35. Marthe Robin (1902-1981), French mystic, lived for nearly fifty years with almost no food; she subordinates fasting to the interior combat against self-will.
17Book of Jonah, 3:5-10 (Jerusalem Bible). At Jonah's preaching, Nineveh proclaims a universal fast; faced with this repentance, God renounces the announced punishment.
19 29Book of Joel, 2:12-13 (Jerusalem Bible). Prophetic call to conversion through fasting, weeping and mourning, and to "rend one's heart" rather than one's garments.
20Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1430 (cf. Joel 2:12-13; Is 1:16-17). Interior penance takes precedence over outward works, which are its sign.
21Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 9:14-15 (Jerusalem Bible; parallels Mk 2:18-20; Lk 5:33-35). Jesus announces that his disciples will fast "when the bridegroom is taken away from them."
22 34Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1438 (cf. SC 109-110; CIC, can. 1249-1253). The seasons and days of penance in the liturgical year: Lent and Fridays.
23 42Saint Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 43 (on fasting, prayer and mercy), Patrologia Latina vol. 52, col. 320. French liturgical translation (AELF). Original Latin text: "Tria sunt, fratres, tria sunt per quae constat fides, stat devotio, manet virtus: oratio, ieiunium, misericordia... ieiunium anima orationis est, misericordia vita ieiunii."
24First Book of Kings, 19:8 (Jerusalem Bible). Elijah walks forty days and forty nights to Horeb, strengthened by the angel's bread.
26Book of Esther, 4:16 (Jerusalem Bible). Esther orders a three-day fast before appearing before the king to save her people.
27Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 540. "The Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert by the solemn forty days of Lent."
32Gospel according to Saint Mark, 9:29, and Matthew, 17:21 (received text / Vulgate). "This kind cannot be driven out except by prayer and fasting."
35The words "and fasting" (Mk 9:29) and the whole of Mt 17:21 are absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus) and are regarded by textual criticism as an ancient liturgical addition; they appear nevertheless in the received text and the Vulgate, and the spiritual tradition has constantly recognized their practical truth. See the critical apparatus of the Greek New Testament (Nestle-Aland, 28th ed., Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, 2012).
36Acts of the Apostles, 14:23 (Jerusalem Bible). Paul and Barnabas appoint elders "with prayer and fasting."
38Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 6:5 and 11:27 (Jerusalem Bible). Saint Paul counts his fasts among the trials of his apostolic ministry; cf. 1 Cor 7:5 on the temporary abstinence of spouses "to devote themselves to prayer."
39Saint Basil the Great, Homily on Fasting (Homily I), delivered between 371 and 378, Patrologia Graeca vol. 31, col. 164-184. French translation: remacle.org (after the Benedictine edition). Basil traces fasting back to the precept given to Adam in paradise (Gen 2:16-17).
401983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1249: all the faithful are bound, by divine law, to do penance; the Church determines certain days and common forms of it. Full text: vatican.va.
441983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1251: "Abstinence from meat... is to be observed on all Fridays of the year, unless a solemnity falls on a Friday; but abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
461983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1252: "The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year; the law of fasting binds all adults until the beginning of their sixtieth year." Canonical majority is set at 18 (can. 97).
47Albéric de Palmaert, Vivre l'Évangile avec Benoît-Joseph Labre, Téqui, 2019, p. 99: words reported by the biographer, not drawn from a writing of the saint. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783), the "beggar pilgrim" canonized in 1881, illustrates radical bodily penance at the service of union with God.
49Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, book I, chapter XIX, 4. Reference edition: transl. F. de Lamennais, numerous reprints. The author links mortification to work and vigilance against idleness.
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