But it isn't the physical suffering that McCarthy wants to talk about at the end of his extraordinary fast. He did it for spiritual reasons. The physical test of fasting 44 days has given McCarthy a renewed sense of spiritual strength.

"Through the days I started to see that there was probably something much more important here," said the native Newfoundlander whose life's work has been labouring to understand and preserve forests and natural ecology on The Rock where he was born. "There's a strength that this (fast) is giving me for exactly the kind of work I had in mind."

McCarthy told The Catholic Register the fast helped him see more clearly the spiritual and ethical dimensions of his work in forest ecology.

"I will continue in some sense with the same work as I did before, but with a different intention or a different strength to it," he said.

The notoriety that came with his fast gave McCarthy a platform to talk to Newfoundlanders about the ethical imperative to preserve their natural heritage. CBC Radio and television interviewed him about the fast, which gave him a chance to talk about land-use planning and ecosystem-based management of forests.

McCarthy was also touched by the cards and e-mails he received from people he had never met — people who understood his desire to do something dramatic, radical and spiritual for the sake of the environment.

"People know where I'm coming from — that spiritual, ethical, theological perspective on the forests and nature," he said.

As McCarthy undertook his fast he knew he was joining in a Christian tradition of radical fasting that stretches back to the desert fathers. He also remembered stories every Jesuit novice learns of how Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola suffered with stomach problems his whole life after overdoing the spirituality of the fast.

"I knew I was part of that longstanding tradition in the church," he said. "People wrote to me and they were quite taken by the fact that these things still exist in the church, that people actually do fast."

In terms of the public witness of his epic fast, McCarthy hopes it will help wean the ecological movement off its addiction to technical and scientific language.

"We think it (science) is the only legitimate way of speaking, which is unfortunate," said McCarthy. "In effect, what motivates them (ecological campaigners) comes from an ethical base. It requires a value-based, ethical, philosophical, theological, spiritual language."