We can recall different forms of fasting: fasting for health, fasting for balance and physiological well-being; therapeutic fasting to regain health and maintain it; athletic fasting to achieve excellent sports performance; aesthetic fasting, to maintain good body shape, etc. Hence, fasting as such today does not undergo any crisis, but rather is on the increase.
Let us reflect on the observations made by the scholar Renata Salvarani who speaking about Baptism, observes that “between the ninth and tenth centuries, the baptismal liturgies underwent some transformations, even significant ones, which can be found both in the normative provisions and in the ecclesiastical practice.”
João de Brito accompanied all these persecutions in south India from outside; he had wanted to suffer those trials with his converts, but they had managed to keep him out from such convulsions, reminding him that the flock might lose some sheep, but it could not be without its shepherd.