Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20

Let me share with you the progress that I have made, since I began my first round of The 40-Day Journal. I will share with you the pictures and events of the first twenty-days. 

The TDL 40-Day Journal is designed to help all of us clean up and repair, if needed, the temple that we have borrowed from God. It is designed to cover forty days because of the significance of the periods throughout all of scripture that cover periods of forty. 

There will be five segments to the challenge;

• Move, walk 25 minutes a day. While walking pray! A rosary, a chaplet, wrote prayers to your patron saint, spontaneous prayers.
  1. Simple bodyweight-only exercises for 10 to 15 minutes a day.
• Determine the greatest vice that you would like to eliminate and the virtue that is opposite the vice. We’ll give you tools to address it for 40 days.
• Maintain a daily gratitude journal. Making note of 3 things that you are grateful for every morning and every evening.
• Make a plan to grow in holiness broken into four, 10-day periods. Focused on just three areas;
  1. Detachment: What you will detach from
  2. Scripture study: What Gospel and what Old Testament book will you study?
  3. Service to others: Who can you provide service to, what can you do to make someone else’s life better?
• Nutrition, a meal plan that works best for you, made up of the following requirements:
  1. Minimum fasting Wednesday and Friday; no snacking, no two meals can equal a third.
  2. Low in carbohydrates
  3. Low to no sugar
  4. Low fat
  5. High protein
  6. High water-rich foods, fresh-green veggies, healthy fruits

One of the components of our 40 day journey will be fasting a minimum of two days a week. In accordance with Church history, that would be every Wednesday and Friday.

The Wednesday fast is linked to Jesus’ Passion and reminds us that is the day that Judas made his deal with the High Priests to turn Jesus over to be arrested. The fast became a way to remind us of how often we betray Jesus through the choices we make to sin or not follow His teachings.

Friday fast is done to remind us of Jesus’ passion and death. It is one day a week that we can make a sacrifice in honor of the love Jesus has for us and a day that we can unit our sacrifice to the one that we can only repay by living a life in which we follow His teachings and join Him in Paradise for all eternity.

On this journey, fasting should not be seen as a form of dieting, but as a form of reclamation of God’s temple. The purpose of a fast is to grow closer to God and empty ourselves of our worldly attachments.

If abstaining is going to cause physical, mental, or emotional problems please strive to fast from worldly things, physical things. You make your own choice since this is your own personal act of sacrifice.

I hope you are willing to join us on this journey. Together we will start a wholistic change, in mind, body and holiness.