All Fridays are Fast Days

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Bon_Croix

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Per Cannon Law, all Fridays are fast days. However, outside of lent meat can be eaten on Friday as long as some other worthy sacrifice is made.

I think lots of Americans are not aware of this. Also, many are not aware that fasting is weaponry against demons and that weaponry is important during Lent b/c the demons arm themselves with their strong guns during Lent to keep us from Jesus.
 
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Bon_Croix said:
Per Cannon Law, all Fridays are fast days. However, outside of lent meat can be eaten on Friday as long as some other worthy sacrifice is made.
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No. The Church has only two universal fast days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Fridays are days of abstinence from meat.
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.
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In the United States (but not necessarily other countries) this has been modified so that some other form of self-denial can be substituted. This is discussed in more detail in the Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence at http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-wor...toral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm
 
Bon_Croix said:
Per Cannon Law, all Fridays are fast days.
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Not strictly correct. Canon Law says:
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.
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http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4O.HTM

Therefore, Fridays are ABSTINENCE days, not fast days (except for Good Friday). Canon Law does not state that fasting is to be observed on every Friday, only that “abstinence from meat, or from some other food” is to be observed on every Friday. You can abstain from meat (or some other food) and yet not fast.

One can of course choose to fast on every Friday, but Canon Law only requires fasting on Good Friday.
 
Bon_Croix said:
Also, many are not aware that fasting is weaponry against demons and that weaponry is important during Lent b/c the demons arm themselves with their strong guns during Lent to keep us from Jesus.
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There are a lot of ways of being armed against “demons”. Fasting is not the only way. A lot of people have legitimate physical reasons why they cannot fast, in the sense of reducing their food. A lot of other people are just plain hungry a lot of the time because of food insecurity or food insufficiency in their era or in their economic situation.

While I see some benefits to fasting done in the proper spirit, I also think that fasting is something that for many can easily get out of hand and cause all sorts of physical issues, or may not be practical depending on the work and responsibilities you are doing during your day. I also think we need to guard against the idea that going without food is somehow a virtue. We should instead seek to eat on most days in moderation and to consume food that is generally healthy for us in the right proportions for our size, our medical condition, our daily activity, and any other special needs we have. We should also seek to make sure others have enough to eat as well.
 
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This has to be understood in light of the situation.

Fasting is very good spiritually if it is done in the spirit of prayer and
love for Jesus. It allows one to grow in Jesus (divinity) and shed evil
tendencies via moderation of the body (one part of the self). Self being
defined as body and soul.
 
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Uh. Huh. I agree.

Someone should not eat seafood or peanut and jelly on Friday if they are
allergic to iodine and peanuts.
 
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Bon_Croix said:
However, outside of lent meat can be eaten on Friday as long as some other worthy sacrifice is made.

I think lots of Americans are not aware of this.
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Yes, I agree that many Americans do not know this.

I even know of one Priest who didn’t know. I confessed that I forgot to do a penance on Friday and he was confused and asked me where I read that we had to do a penance on all Fridays outside of lent.

I told him that I read it on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s website (usccb.org) - he was dumbfounded that he didn’t know that.

God bless!

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-wor...toral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm
 
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Bon_Croix said:
Fasting is very good spiritually if it is done in the spirit of prayer and love for Jesus.
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Yes, but I tend to think when it reaches the point of actually going hungry, as opposed to just giving up particular foods or other activities you would normally enjoy, you need to be in a somewhat developed spiritual state for it to be a beneficial activity. It can be negative or even dangerous if not done in the right frame of mind and also knowing when to say when. And I’m not just talking about danger of developing eating disorders, though that is one pitfall. There are a lot of others.

I think if one is going to take up regular fasting, it should be in conjunction with a healthy prayer life and with some advance knowledge of how fasting in the particular way you do it will affect both your body and mind, because it does affect both. Those who fast within orders are in a community with a lot of established practice and knowledge about this. That’s not always the case for lay people.
 
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I can’t say I disagree with you, but laypersons are in a community. It’s
the Church. During Lent, the community is especially communal.

Your worries about eating disorders, etc… are a little extreme for me.

Heck, I’m hungry almost all the time, and I eat sufficiently as would be
advised by an American secular dietician.

I also am aware that some very religious people have fasted for weeks, if
not months, and had no health problems (the vital records were recorded by
medical doctors).
 
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I know a lot of people who have gone without food, or eaten very little food for one reason or another, over protracted periods of time, including myself. In some cases it was weight loss or “cleansing” related, in some cases it was religiously motivated (including non-Catholic or non-Christian religions), in some cases it was due to lack of food money, or simply being so overwhelmed with life responsibilities or tragedies that they did not have motivation to eat very much.

We’ll leave out the people who developed full-blown or borderline eating disorders, since you pooh-poohed that. It’s a serious problem, whether you want to see it as such or not. I developed some very unhealthy eating patterns, but did not have a disorder and have never been below a normal weight range. I mention that just so nobody thinks I’m pushing an agenda. I knew plenty of other anorexics and bulimics though. They keep it very well hidden.

Some people who limited their food had fainting spells. In some cases this resulted in injury. I myself have passed out once in the past and come pretty close to it several more times. I discovered at some point I had anemia which I hadn’t known I had. A couple other people I know also discovered they had anemia or diabetes.

If you are limiting your food while you are a) driving, b) taking care of children, or c) operating machinery at work, bad things can obviously happen. You may say this sounds like common sense, but you often feel pretty OK right up to the point 30 seconds before you pass out when you don’t feel okay any more. And needless to say, I don’t want any doctors or medical staff taking care of me or my loved ones fasting while they are on the job. All it takes is one mistake caused by lack of focus…

Going without food for prolonged periods can also have mental health effects. A lot of my anxiety and mood swings turned out to be caused by blood sugar imbalances caused by not eating. As it turned out, I did not need professional help, I needed to eat a healthy dinner.

There are endless studies about how young people don’t learn very well in school when they are hungry, so fasting while you’re attending school or college is not a great idea.

After some years of an extremely limited food intake, I ended up having to go see a nutritionist for a while to basically get trained on how to properly eat.

I’m sure there will be people coming out of the woodwork now saying they never had any problems while fasting and it’s just the greatest thing ever for them and their spiritual life. The problem is when you start suggesting that all people should do it, you run into a significant percentage who have some or all of the above problems. I think this is one reason why the Church doesn’t really push the idea of fasting. To say nothing of the fact that the Church is concerned with feeding the hungry and doesn’t really want to put hunger up on a pedestal as a wonderful thing.
 
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Not relevant.

A Catholic man who willingly chooses to eat meat on a Friday is committing a sin of disobedience to the Church. It’s not about the meat itself. It’s about obeying the authority Christ put here on Earth.
 
“fasting” is used both in the specific sense of reduced/eliminated food intake, and general sense of that same specific sense, abstinence, and substitute penance.

And as for “all” Fridays . . . I don’t know about the west, but in the east, fasting is not only discouraged but prohibited for all of Bright Week (the week after Pascha), including Friday. Other feasts can also trump Friday.

Last year, the Annunciation pre-empted Good Friday (which won’t happen again in any of our lifetimes). There are actually special rules for that. Our parish actually kept the booklets we printed that won’t be relevant for another century :roll_eyes: . . .

Anyway, for the Saturday liturgy on pasta, the East already has two sets of altar coverings, the black in place over the white, which is removed during the liturgy. When this happens, we have three: the Marion Blue over the black, which gets removed, and then the blacken turn gets removed (I took pictures, as I’ll ever see it again . . .).
hawk
 
dochawk said:
“fasting” is used both in the specific sense of reduced/eliminated food intake, and general sense of that same specific sense, abstinence, and substitute penance.
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In the Western Church, “fasting” and “abstinence” are not the same things and the terms are not used interchangeably. A “fast day” on the calendar has significantly different eating rules than an “abstinence day”.
 
Eating meat on a friday in the Catholic church is determined where you live too is it not? Some Bishops allow it do they not?
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
In the Western Church, “fasting” and “abstinence” are not the same things and the terms are not used interchangeably. A “fast day” on the calendar has significantly different eating rules than an “abstinence day”.
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I understand that–but the fat remains that “fasting” is still used in discussions in the general sense, and that abstinence isa form of fasting.

In germs of western church discipline, “fasting” means the reduced meals of those two days (at least in the US); for all other purposes, including theology, “abstinence” is a type of fasting.

hawk
 
dshix said:
A Catholic man who willingly chooses to eat meat on a Friday is committing a sin of disobedience to the Church. It’s not about the meat itself. It’s about obeying the authority Christ put here on Earth.
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That is correct. If one is given a dispensation by the proper authority, they are no longer bound by the precept to abstain from meat.
 
I do wonder, at times, about the ‘rules’ of the church!
 
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Lost4words said:
I do wonder, at times, about the ‘rules’ of the church!
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Sometimes, I do too. An acquaintance of mine had an interesting take on church “rules” pertaining to devotions. He said, “whenever an act of piety or devotion becomes a law or a rule, it ceases to be pious or devout.” Somehow, I think there is great truth in that statement.
 
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