As we ring in a new Lenten season today, here is what I call "Rome's Rules for Fasting":
The Rules for the Roman Catholic Church:Growing up, my mother claimed that fish was not meat, so we were permitted to eat fish on Friday. From reading the canons above, it appears that as long as we were under 15 we could have eaten a whole cow and gotten away with it.
The Code of Canon Law prescribes (Canons 1250-1252):
Can. 1250: The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.
Can. 1251: Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Can. 1252: The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Pastors of souls and parents are to ensure that even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance.
In the United States, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has declared that "the age of fasting is from the completion of the eighteenth year to the beginning of the sixtieth."
Not only do I get a pass from jury duty, I no longer have to fast if I don't want to.
Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.
For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are:
1) Obligatory from age 18 until age 59.
2) When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal. Two smaller meals may also be taken, but not to equal a full meal.
3) The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards (also from USCCB).
Our ACNA priest is not into fasting, so I am on my own if I hope to lose those pounds I put on from Thanksgiving through Fat Tuesday.
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Fasting has a solid biblical history, although the details are not given.
ReplyDeleteThe Orthodox do fasting even more rigorously than Catholics; and the Coptic Orthodox, whom I got to know in Egypt, are strict. No food or water from dawn to dusk, followed by a simple evening meal of vegetables. This regimen is followed throughout Lent, all days, not just Wednesday and Friday.
At a minimum, I think the "no water" fast is unhealthy and can have serious consequences. I think Jews do this strict fast for one day, once a year (Yom Kippur).
We'll probably eat fish on Wednesday and Friday during Lent. In gratitude for my husband's surviving a very serious medical condition a few years ago, we began the Friday fast from meat and have continued it.
Since so many Catholics are hardly observant at all these days, it would be good for them, as a sign of commitment to the faith, to resume the Friday fast from meat all year.
One year I followed a meatless Lent. Pewsterspouse thought I was crazy. I often found myself explaining the meaning of Lent to people at work who were mostly Baptists or non-denominationalists.
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