Abstinence on Sundays during Lent

[sedonaman]

… I have no idea what the fasting restrictions were, but I’m sure they were tougher than “1 meal and two small ones” like we have now.
…

Pre-Vatican II: One full meal and two smaller ones that did not add up to one full meal. This applied to every day from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, inclusive. Sundays you could pull out all the stops. The rule is the same today except it applies only to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Excluding Sundays, there are 40 days not approximately 40 days] between this year’s Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday … and every other year I bothered to count. This can’t be an accident.

 

[Anna_Claire]

"If Sundays are not part of Lent then why is the Gloria omitted during mass and why do the clerics vest in Sundays during Lent are not days of penance but they have a penitential character. "

Sundays during Lent are not days of penance but they have a penitential character reflected in the liturgy. We can put aside our individual penances if we want because it is the Lord’s Day but that doesn’t mean we refrain from liturgical prayer,retreats,pilgrimages etc that help keep us on course during Lent.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Sundays are most certainly part of Lent. That is why this Sunday is called… the “Third Sunday of Lent.”

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

I would think it would depend on what your abstaining from. If what you are abstaining from was taking you away from God (such as what I gave up), then I don’t know why you would want to go back to that on Sundays?

My husband keeps trying to tell me if would be ok on Sundays but I think even though technically it might…but I am not going to do that.

It would just depend on what project you and the Lord are working on together…IMHO.

 

[bearer]

As others have written, the 40 days of Lent do no include Sundays and Feast Days. Check the calendar if you have doubts.

Remember, we’re not fasting and abstaining for their own sake. The point is to grow closer to God, not to deny oneself arbitrarily.

 

[SMHW]

A wrestler was once asked, “Is professional wrestling real?” He replied, “What do you mean by ‘real’?” I think we are working with at least two different meanings for “Lent” – one conservative and one liberal. There are those who want to make it up to suit themselves and others who can count the days. Unless there is a new rule [always a possibility with those who prefer relativism], 40=40 the last time I checked. Does scripture say the ancient Hebrews spent “approximately” 40 years in the wilderness? Does scripture say Jesus spent “approximately” 40 days fasting in the desert? Did he really “fast” and was it really a “desert”? Then again, if you begin counting from sundown [the beginning of the Hebrew day] to Sunday morning, the Passion/Resurrection wasn’t three days; it was only 2 plus a fraction.

I agree that there are different definitions of “Lent” flowing around here. Add to that the matter that the Lenten season and the Triduum are considered distinct today while that was not the general perception before the liturgical reforms following Vatican II.

I tend to be of the opinion that the human authors of the Bible, both New and Old Testament, probably had a more symbolic than concrete view of numbers. And I also am of the opinion that the leaders of the Church have had more or less concrete understandings of such bible passages throughout time, depending on their own cultural understandings of numbers.

Since the Church has not seen fit to rule that the various uses of the number 40 are to be interpreted literally, I don’t believe any of us should do so either.

 

[sedonaman]

…Since the Church has not seen fit to rule that the various uses of the number 40 are to be interpreted literally, I don’t believe any of us should do so either.

Then how is the [world-wide] average Catholic suppose to know when he is right and when he is wrong?

 

[sedonaman]

Sundays are most certainly part of Lent. That is why this Sunday is called… the “Third Sunday of Lent.”

They are of Lent but not in Lent.

 

[Luvtosew]

As a kid they were always free days. As an adult I include Sundays.

 

[SMHW]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHW forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
…Since the Church has not seen fit to rule that the various uses of the number 40 are to be interpreted literally, I don’t believe any of us should do so either.

Then how is the [world-wide] average Catholic suppose to know when he is right and when he is wrong?

If the Church has not defined something to be right or wrong then the average Catholic can’t determine it either. There are lots of things (like what happens to unbaptized babies when they die: Heaven? Hell? Limbo?) about which the Church does not make dogmatic pronouncements.

 

[Lapey]

Pre-Vatican II: One full meal and two smaller ones that did not add up to one full meal. This applied to every day from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, inclusive. Sundays you could pull out all the stops. The rule is the same today except it applies only to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Excluding Sundays, there are 40 days not approximately 40 days] between this year’s Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday … and every other year I bothered to count. This can’t be an accident.

Sorry sedonaman, but you need to count days.

Lent 2012- To go by your premise that Holy Saturday Mass ends Lent, and subtract Sundays, Lent would be 39 days and 19 hours (assuming a 7 PM Mass time)

2013-non Leap year - 38 days 19 hours

Lent 2012 - To go by what I understand the seasons to be - Lent ends at the start of the Holy Thursday Mass, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (again assuming 7 PM start)

Sundays excluded - Lent would be 37 days 19 hours for leap year and 36 days 19 hours for non leap year.

This is my understanding of the Lenten season. Sundays included - Lent is 43 days 19 hours for a leap year, and 42 days 19 hours for non leap years.

As one poster has already stated, there is no way to make Lent actually 40 days, with or without Leap year; and there is no need to.

I think people are confusing required fasting and abstinence and optional acts of penance during Lent, such as giving up something like candy for example.

All Fridays are days of required abstinence and Ash Wednesday and Good Friday also fasting. No Sundays are required fasting or abstinence. However, if one makes a decision to abstain from something such as candy, I am of the opinion that that includes Sundays. But this is an optional act of penance. People ask me about this and I simply state, yes Sundays are part of Lent.

Canon 1251 states the exception when a solemnity such as St. Joseph’s Day falls on a Friday. The Lenten requirement is superseded by the feast, Sundays to my knowledge are not solemnities, and they are in deed feast days but not solemnities.

Under current canonical and USA guidelines my understanding is this; Lent 2012 is 43 days 19 hours (00:00 AM Ash Wednesday through 7PM Mass Holy Thursday Mass)

Required fast and abstinence is Ash Wednesday and Good Friday - abstinence all Fridays as no Solemnities fall on Fridays this year. Everything else is optional, but again, if you chose to abstain for Lent, abstain for all of Lent; not only 6 days a week.

But hey, this is only the thoughts of a humble deacon.

Peace, Dcn. Gary

 

[Lapey]

Then how is the [world-wide] average Catholic suppose to know when he is right and when he is wrong?

How do you get exactly 40 days? Leap year or not. Are we that leagalistic and literal? Help me here.

 

[SMHW]

As a kid they were always free days. As an adult I include Sundays.

When I was a child we always considered Sundays as part of Lent and days that we had to stick to our Lenten resolutions. I think that was the usually pre-Vatican II view of things. I think we also though all of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday as part of Lent too. I don’t know if that’s specifically what the Church taught but that was how we understood things.

 

[Luvtosew]

When I was a child we always considered Sundays as part of Lent and days that we had to stick to our Lenten resolutions. I think that was the usually pre-Vatican II view of things. I think we also though all of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday as part of Lent too. I don’t know if that’s specifically what the Church taught but that was how we understood things.

Oh I was pre vatican and my Mom let us eat whatever we gave up on Sundays, maybe she shouldn’t of, ha ha, all year around we never ate meat on Fridays, Thats about all I remember, I really don’t know what the rule was.

 

[jfmarm81]

Lots of good information here…my friend went to a Catholic high school and she was telling me that the teachers there taught Sundays were more or less ‘free days.’ I thought this was crazy so I spoke to my parents- 2 of the strictest Catholics I’ve ever known. They both told me the same. So it was nice to see a thread on this here.

 

[felsguy]

from Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, CHAPTER I, The Liturgical Year, #28

             “The forty days of Lent run from Ash Wednesday up to but excluding the 
               Mass of the Lord’s Supper exclusive.”

Granted, this does not answer all the questions posed here, and certainly not the OP’s, and especially how do we enumerate the 40 days, but hopefully it provides some context for the discussion.

 

[felsguy]

Sorry sedonaman, but you need to count days.

Lent 2012- To go by your premise that Holy Saturday Mass ends Lent, and subtract Sundays, Lent would be 39 days and 19 hours (assuming a 7 PM Mass time)

2013-non Leap year - 38 days 19 hours

Lent 2012 - To go by what I understand the seasons to be - Lent ends at the start of the Holy Thursday Mass, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (again assuming 7 PM start)

Sundays excluded - Lent would be 37 days 19 hours for leap year and 36 days 19 hours for non leap year.

This is my understanding of the Lenten season. Sundays included - Lent is 43 days 19 hours for a leap year, and 42 days 19 hours for non leap years.

As one poster has already stated, there is no way to make Lent actually 40 days, with or without Leap year; and there is no need to…

But hey, this is only the thoughts of a humble deacon.

Peace, Dcn. Gary

Since leap year adds a day to the month of February and not an eighth day to any week of Lent, I don’t believe it would change the count. Still doesn’t answer how to enumerate the forty days though.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

They are of Lent but not in Lent.

Post of the day right there!!!

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Maybe this is more a regional thing???



I had never heard of Sundays being “Free” days during Lent, but then again, I stopped going to church when I was 10, just about the time Vat II was ramping up. (I remember “guitar Mass,” for example.)

So the first time I heard of Sundays not being part of Lent, I was all

:hypno: Heard it consistently over the years, from various sources. Not everyone believed it, but the greater number did agree, that Sundays in Lent are “free” days.

But now our pastor even stated it this past Sunday! He said “Sundays in Lent don’t count.”



Well, I just can’t take the day off from my sacrifices, so for now, I will just continue with Sundays being included.

 

[Anna_Claire]

Then how is the [world-wide] average Catholic suppose to know when he is right and when he is wrong?

Its up to us to figure that out! There are some things that don’t need a pronouncement from the church. We are expected to fast,abstain, pray and help the poor during Lent. It’s a time of repentance and soul searching. The church gives us the guidelines and a few rules. What we do with that is totally up to us as mature thinking adults. That’s a good thing. We’re not programmed robots.