BU Chaplains Panel to Discuss Fasting for Lent and Ramadan
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BU Chaplains Panel to Discuss Fasting for Lent and Ramadan
Christian and Islamic seasons begin a day apart this year, with fasting a ritual of both
On the cusp of two holy seasons involving fasting—Lent for Christians and Ramadan for Muslims—a panel of Boston University chaplains will discuss the ritual of food restriction and its role in spirituality.
The event, Fasting and Spirituality: A Conversation with BU Chaplains, sponsored by Marsh Chapel and BU’s Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs (CURA) will be held on Monday, February 2, at BU’s Pardee School of Global Studies, 121 Bay State Road, from 6 to 7:30 pm. The event is open to the general public, but registration is required.
Ramadan begins the evening of February 17. The next day is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.
During Lent, comprising the 40 days before Easter, many Christians fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and some fast every weekday. The season, a solemn preparation for Easter, recalls the biblical account of Jesus’ fasting during 40 days in the desert. Easter this year falls on April 5 for Western Christian churches and April 12 for Orthodox churches, the difference owing to the different calendars used by the groups: the older Julian calendar by the Orthodox, the Gregorian calendar by Western churches.
Ramadan, lasting until March 19, is Islam’s monthlong period of daylight fasting and spiritual growth, celebrating the Prophet Mohammed’s receiving the revealed Koran, which commands fasting to gain righteousness.
“The goal of the Fasting and Spirituality Panel is to provide a new opportunity for interfaith learning for the campus community,” says panel moderator Rev. Jessica Chicka (STH’07,’11,’19), University chaplain for international students.
“With Ramadan and Lent starting at the same time this year, both religious seasons that emphasize fasting as a spiritual practice, Marsh Chapel and CURA thought it would be a great topic to start conversation among the Abrahamic traditions,” Chicka says. “We hope to show that while there are differences in how fasting may be observed among traditions, there are also elements shared in common. Hopefully, interest in the event will allow us to hold more events like these in the future, during which more traditions are represented and heard from.”
Jeremy Menchik, CURA’s director and a Pardee School of Global Studies associate professor of international relations and of political science, says the panel discussion developed “in a quintessential BU way: through curiosity, conversation, and connection,” in this case at a CURA academic-year opening gathering last September. The realization by Pardee and Marsh representatives of the convergence of the two holy seasons triggered the idea of an event about fasting.
Fasting is a core practice across religious traditions, and the event is a wonderful opportunity for the BU community to connect to each other and to a transcendent set of values.
“Fasting is a core practice across religious traditions, and the event is a wonderful opportunity for the BU community to connect to each other and to a transcendent set of values,” Menchik says. “The event is also a prelude to CURA’s February 12 Conference on the Jewish Left, whose theme is similarly rooted in Dr. Martin Luther King’s [GRS’55, Hon.’59] vision for collective liberation: ‘None of us are free until all of us are free.’”
Chicka will be joined by panelists Rabbi Rav Micha Stettin; Sister Naureen Mallick, associate Muslim chaplain; Rev. Kevin Staley-Joyce, director of the BU Catholic Center; and Rev. Philip Halikias (STH’21), chief compliance officer of Brookline’s Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.