Why One Meal?

The Case for 'OMAD' as the Template for Traditional Fasting

The following is an excerpt from The Benedict Challenge – a 40-day journey to transform mind, body & spirit, following the lost fasting tradition of One Meal a Day. The paperback book is now available for those looking to take their Lenten discipline more seriously this year.

If you’re not ready to commit to the full 40 days, you can sign up for the test cohort and get an abridged PDF at no cost. I am hosting brief, weekly calls, including one tonight at 5pm PT, to check in and prepare for the week ahead, when we shift from a 12-hour eating window to a 10-hour eating window.

Today’s installment looks at the development of the One Meal as the basic template for fasting. As always, the content from my books is free for paid subscribers.

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Jesus’ initial act following His baptism in the Jordan River is a testament to the significance of fasting within the Christian tradition. Led by the Spirit, He retreats into the desert to fast for forty days. There, among the wild beasts and with angels ministering to Him, he encounters Satan’s temptations.

These temptations, aimed at undermining His divine sonship through offers of worldly power and sustenance, are decisively rebuffed by Jesus. When presented with the lure of turning stones into bread, Jesus responds, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

This act of fasting and resistance not only marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry but also serves as a pivotal moment of redemption. It echoes the failures of Adam in the Garden of Eden and Israel in the wilderness, positioning Jesus as the new Adam who embodies perfect obedience to God’s will. His forty-day fast in the wilderness is not merely a personal trial but a symbolic act that foreshadows His ultimate victory over sin and death in the Passion. The Church, in commemorating Jesus’ desert experience through the forty days of Lent, unites itself with this mystery.

This number of 40 days carries deep biblical significance.

Moses fasted for forty days—not once, not twice, but three times—atop Mount Sinai, where he received the law written by God’s finger.

The Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert, sustained by manna, before entering the Promised Land—a land “flowing with milk and honey.”

Moses fasted for 40 days

Similarly, the Prophet Elijah, in a moment of despair and threat, embarked on a forty-day journey to Mount Horeb, where he encountered God. The people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s warning, fasted for 40 days to avert God’s wrath.

By the time of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness, the symbolic significance of the number 40 was well-established, representing a period of repentance, preparation, and anticipation that precedes a revelation or divine blessing.

From the very beginning, the practice of fasting—or the failure to adhere to it—has been central to humanity’s redemptive arc. The command given to Adam and Eve, to abstain from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, was essentially a fast. Their disobedience, followed by an act of gluttony, brought sin into the world.

As a result, we continue to fight the battle between flesh and spirit described in Scripture. This struggle most often manifests in the realms of eating and sexuality—the two areas in which our base instincts or animal urges rear their head and tempt us into excess.

Fasting as a Core Spiritual Discipline

Theologians and saints throughout the ages have grappled with the perennial questions of how to tame our base instincts and appetites. In this quest for spiritual discipline and mastery over the flesh, fasting emerges as a pivotal practice.

St. Augustine, in an early sermon, preached that “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true light of chastity.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, presents fasting as serving a threefold purpose in Question 147 of the Summa Theologiae. By disciplining bodily desires, he says, we bridle the lusts of the flesh. By detaching from earthly nourishment, the mind ascends more freely to heavenly contemplation (as evidenced by the revelations granted to the prophet Daniel after his three-week fast). And by embracing voluntary hardship, we offer atonement for sins—both our own and those of others.

However, while the theme of atonement frequently surfaces in these theological analyses, the Biblical narrative of fasting presents it less as an exercise in penance or legalistic obligation and more as an expression of dependence and preparation for an encounter with God.