Fasting.--Going without food of any kind as a religious discipline and as a help to the spiritual life, especially on the great Fasts of the Church. The Homily on Fasting says: "Fasting is found to be of two sorts; the one outward, pertaining to the body; the other inward, in the heart and mind. The outward fast is an abstinence from meat, drink and all natural food, for the determined time of fasting; yea, from all {108} delicacies, pleasures and delectations worldly. The inward fast consists in that godly sorrow which leads us to bewail and detest our sins and to abstain from committing them." Fasting Communion.--(See EARLY COMMUNION.) Fasts, Table of.--The Reformers of the English Church retained and enjoined _one hundred and twenty-three_ days in each year, to be sanctified wholly or in part as Fasts and days of abstinence. These, with the exception of the Table of Vigils, have been retained in the American Prayer Book and are the following: ABSOLUTE FASTS, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. OTHER DAYS OF FASTING, _on which the Church requires such a measure of abstinence as is more especially suited to extraordinary acts and exercises of devotion, namely_: I. The Forty Days of Lent. II. The Ember Days at the four seasons. III. The Three Rogation Days. IV. All Fridays in the year, except Christmas Day. These Fasting Days must always be announced to the congregation in Church, the rubric in the Communion Office requiring that "Then the Minister shall declare unto the People what Holy Days or Fasting Days are in the week following to be observed."