Ash Wednesday & Good Friday fasting - liquids allowed

[Joe_5859]

So coffee is out?

As far as I have always understood it, coffee does not break the fast.

I always stick to just water between meals, but that’s just my personal preference as a non-coffee drinker.

 

[Rau]

CURRENT CHURCH REGULATIONS ON FASTING AND ABSTINENCE

What is your source/document for this?

 

[TheLittleLady]

This does not include meat juices, broths, soups, lards, gravies, sauces, animal fats, and liquid foods made from meat.

This varies by Diocese. I am not permitted soups and gravies made from meat:

Lenten Q&A | DOLR.org

www.dolr.org

Current practice in the Church is guided by the document “Paenitemini,” given in 1966 by Pope Paul VI. In previous documents the question of soups and gravies was spoken of specifically. In “Paenitemini” the question is not specifically included. That has led to some discussion of the issue in Catholic circles. For the practice in the Diocese of Little Rock, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor has interpreted the practice to include abstaining from soups and gravies made from meat.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

CURRENT CHURCH REGULATIONS ON FASTING AND ABSTINENCE

2019 March Confraternity of Penitents Newsletter

2019 Confraternity of Penitents Newsletter, Lent, Carrying One's Cross, The Trinity, the Holy Land, Virtue

www.franciscanthirdorderpenitents.com

Which, as another reader correctly notes above, is not an official Church source. I actually got it from an earlier CAF thread.

This does not include meat juices, broths, soups, lards, gravies, sauces, animal fats, and liquid foods made from meat.

This is the only doubtful regulation I have seen on the nature of fasting and abstinence. I mean no disrespect, but the USCCB doesn’t do any of us any favors, when they say that “moral theologians have traditionally taught that we should abstain from all animal-derived products (except foods such as gelatin, butter, cheese and eggs, which do not have any meat taste)”. This is what is called in moral theology a case of in dubio libertas — “liberty in doubt”. I would much prefer to see meat-derived foods, with some taste of meat, either allowed or disallowed. I just hate to see scrupulous people tormented over such things, which I can foresee happening.

If the bishop of a given diocese (such as Little Rock) places these foods under those covered by abstinence, then that is his prerogative for his diocese, as he is that diocese’s spiritual father.

For my part (I do not live in that diocese), I was craving something salty and savory between meals today, so I relented and made a cup of beef bouillon. It had gone bad in the cupboard so I ended up pouring it out. I suppose I should have used the almost-empty Marmite jar in the kitchen to make tea. (I love Marmite! I spread it as thickly as I would hazelnut spread — even the British advise using it sparingly, wimps! :uk: — and can’t get enough of the stuff. Good with a slice of cheese on toast.)

 

[dochawk]

I’ve had frog legs, but I don’t think I’ve ever eaten turtle.

turtle may only be eaten on fasting days as a soup, and then only from soup bowl with which nature shipped that turtle . . .

American “cheese” has an artificial and plastic feel to it, I will agree, but there is no other cheese that melts quite so exquisitely on a grilled hamburger.

Most “american cheese” isn’t cheese, but “cheese product.”

If you look for it, you can find real american cheese. Don’t count on the brand, as most that make it also make the “product”

I am almost certain that alligator is not in the meat category. some places, even muskrat is acceptable.

I’ve never hear of a reptile exception, but just don’t know.

That said, even though the East includes fish as meat, it doesn’t consider crustaceans and other “sea bugs” to be so (but then, those fasting rules wouldn’t allow melted butter [or any other dairy] for all of lent).

muskrat is an odd case from an area that seems to consider t a fish . .

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I am almost certain that alligator is not in the meat category. some places, even muskrat is acceptable.

Some of these “treated like fish for abstinence purposes even though they’re clearly not fish” seem to come from local customs and needs. By no stretch of the imagination is a muskrat a fish. Similarly, alligators and turtles are not fish either. They

Spoiler

, along with birds,

are latter-day dinosaurs, cold-blooded flesh-bearing animals.

For the Church in certain regions to say “this is kind of like fish and you can eat it as you would eat fish” is clearly a canonical legal fiction. It does, however, fall within the Church’s authority to bind and to loose.

ETA: birds are warm-blooded, I didn’t know what I was talking about when I asserted that they are cold-blooded. A chicken’s highest and best use is either to produce eggs for my breakfast or to be fried and placed beside the waffles :fried_egg:

 

[dochawk]

I wouldn’t put it so much as as a “legal fiction” but as “the underlying point.”

There’s nothing inherent about pescals and mammals and their nature in the RC fast . . .

And as far as being animals, so are fish . . . and the historic fast, which I believe included RC until it was relaxed, didn’t allow fish, but always allowed sea bugs . .

 

[HomeschoolDad]

There’s nothing inherent about pascals and mammals and their nature in the RC fast

By “pascals”, do you mean fish? I have never heard that word used to describe fish before.

No, you are quite right, there is nothing inherent, except that fish do not have “flesh” in the same way that mammals, birds, and reptiles have flesh. It is of a different nature and texture. It is a historically cheap and easily digestible form of protein.

I would be interested in knowing more about the “historic fast”. Am I to understand that it was basically vegan (no animal products whatsoever)? Was honey included? (Honey is “kind of an animal product and kind of not an animal product”, in that if I am understanding correctly, it contains no animal protein but comes from a bodily function of an animal.)

 

[dochawk]

By “pascals”, do you mean fish? I have never heard that word used to describe fish before.

Neither have I. I missed autocorrect changing from “pascals” (which I’m not really certain is. word anyway . . .)

No, you are quite right, there is nothing inherent, except that fish do not have “flesh” in the same way that mammals, birds, and reptiles have flesh

A recent RC innovation . . .

:crazy_face:

more seriously, I believe the west used to make the same distinction.

The Eastern is roughly “has blood”, so fish are not permitted (but an exception for a day or two of the weekend).

[years ago I questioned whether this means that we could eat male mosquitoes, but not female (which are the ones that bite and take blood )]\

I would be interested in knowing more about the “historic fast”. Am I to understand that it was basically vegan (no animal products whatsoever)?

The ancient fast was largely what the poor in the mediterranean ate in the first and second centuries. So no meat or animal products, with oil banned because it was kept in animal skins.

Only the poorest of the poor had to eat “sea bugs” (crustaceans), so they were allowed.

The west relaxed the fast more over time, while some (not all) of the east are largely unchanged (while a couple are very close to the kosher rules . . .).

This is another thing that the byzcath.org archives are rich in discussion for.

 

[neophyte]

muskrat is an odd case from an area that seems to consider t a fish . .

What? No, it’s not considered to be fish, it’s considered to be not carne because it spends most of its life in the water.

 

[Mi_Rose]

The story I heard about muskrat, which was allowed in Michigan quite a while ago, was that the Bishop when asked if muskrat was allowed because it swam answered that if a person could stand the taste of muskrat they could eat it during Lent. Maybe he thought it was a good penitential practice.

 

[Gorgias]

The viscosity of any “liquid” such as water, milk, cream, cheese, broth, bolognaise, or gravy is inversely proportional to the rate at which one will progress to hell if one consumes such during an obligatory fast.

So… water is low in viscosity, so water drinkers progress to hell quite quickly?

(p.s., bolognese is a meat sauce.)

 

[Pitcairn17]

You need to re-check your biology books. Birds are endothermic - they’re warm-blooded.

 

[JanetF]

turtle may only be eaten on fasting days as a soup, and then only from soup bowl with which nature shipped that turtle . . .

LMAO

I found an empty turtle shell in my yard last fall and held on to it to see what my daughter’s dog would do with it when he came home for holiday break…he wasn’t too impressed after about 5 minutes he walked away.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

You need to re-check your biology books. Birds are endothermic - they’re warm-blooded.

No, I need to “re-check” the fact that my university didn’t have comprehensive science requirements for graduation, and that as a liberal arts graduate, I was permitted to skate by with botany and geology. Now that you call it to my mind, of course birds are warm-blooded. I knew that, I just didn’t make the connection. My life science knowledge inclines more towards the newly conceived zygote being a unique human person with its own DNA, the fact that some contraceptives therefore sometimes act as abortifacients, and the fact that NFP doesn’t always “work” the way we want it to — which is good, I am always happy to see Almighty God assert that He is in charge, not us.

But anyway. Birds are warm-blooded. If the little pencil thing will allow it, I will go back and edit. Thanks.

 

[neophyte]

The story I heard about muskrat, which was allowed in Michigan quite a while ago, was that the Bishop when asked if muskrat was allowed because it swam answered that if a person could stand the taste of muskrat they could eat it during Lent. Maybe he thought it was a good penitential practice.

That was actually a quip that Bishop Povish of the Diocese of Lansing made in the 1980’s. The muskrat dispensation exists in the Diocese of Detroit from the 1700’s, when it was given due to the limited food sources late in the long hard winters that the area sees. I’ve been told that it’s rather like duck (among other things), and after 25 years living up here I hope to FINALLY get to try it next month. There’s a muskrat dinner at one of the downriver ecclesial communities in late March.

 

[dochawk]

Maybe he thought it was a good penitential practice.

much like the pope and the German beer that had had a hard journey . . .

 

[TomH1]

What, no snails?

 

[Welshrabbit]

Only if they’re served in garlic and drawn butter…

 

[TomH1]

Gator is what the average biological layman would call cold-blooded. It is a reptile. So, I believe the rules would permit its consumption. I haven’t tried it but in Australia once I had crocodile and would consider eating it again to be a penance.