Children and Lenten Obiligations

  • Thread starter Thread starter MissRose73
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

MissRose73

Guest
When I was under age 14, my mother ensured that all Fridays and Ash Wednesday were meatless even though my sister and I were under the age. I am sure we were not alone on that part. Also, we were to try to give up something, pray extra, and/or do something nice for someone for the penitential practices.

Just wondering: how many parents have their children under age 14 participate in Meatless Ash Wednesday and Fridays? How many parents have their children participate in some way doing some type of prayer and/or some form of alms giving?

For more good detail… usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/questions-and-answers-about-lent.cfm
 
My children were rather offended as young adults when they discovered the Lenten obligations had not actually been required of them under the age of 14. I told them the church may not have required it, but, as their mother, I did. I also notice they aren’t sharing the information with their own children now that they are parents . . .
 
We worship as a family. And we are meatless on all Fridays. All of us. From birth to adult.

It is just a normal part of our faith for the kids. 🤷
 
Same here - it’s just what we do in our house. Even if you don’t abstain from meat or aren’t Catholic, if you are our guest for a Friday night dinner in Lent, be prepared for a very simple meat-less meal - doesn’t matter if you are 5, 25, 50, or 80. It’s just what we do. It doesn’t hurt the kids to start practicing now. With the modern American diet, it’s not like they will suffer malnutrition by making small sacrifices one day a week.
 
The Church says:

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.
*
vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4O.HTM
 
Unless a child has some special health issues I don’t know why they would NEED to eat meat on a Friday, especially if the adults are not eating meat.

For one thing, so many kid-friendly meals, such as mac&cheese, already don’t have meat. I have a hard time imagining fixing a meat diet for children when the older family members are not eating meat.

My guess is that the exception for children under 14 is because many Catholic children are under the authority of non-Catholics on Fridays.
 
Catholic schools always have meatless cafeteria offerings in Lent.
I think most people do it as a family. The only exception might be daycare children, who don’t have others around them abstaining, but then, daycare children are probably eating mac n cheese anyway. 🤷
The key is to include them in what the family is doing at home, where there is discussion of the how and why’s of our faith. That’s part of being a Catholic parent, no?
 
pianistclare said:
Catholic schools always have meatless cafeteria offerings in Lent.
I think most people do it as a family. The only exception might be daycare children, who don’t have others around them abstaining, but then, daycare children are probably eating mac n cheese anyway. 🤷
The key is to include them in what the family is doing at home, where there is discussion of the how and why’s of our faith. That’s part of being a Catholic parent, no?
Click to expand...
Exactly.

Like I said, I suspect the only reason that the age is set at age 14, instead of, say, age 7, is for the sake of children who are under the care of non-Catholic school officials, friends, or family members on Fridays. It would not be fair to such children to ask them to avoid the meat they are told to eat.

By the time they are 14, most kids have at least some responsibility for their own dietary choices. But unless they have already been learning about and practicing eating meatless meals on Friday, why would we expect them to start eating meatless on their own?
 
Bookcat said:
The Church says:

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.

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4O.HTM
Click to expand...
 
Certainly we grew up with meatless Fridays when I was a child. Can’t even imagine Maman cooking a separate meal for us just because we weren’t obliged to abstain from meat, any more than I would have cooked a separate meal for my kids (who were always free to go make themselves a peanut butter sandwich if they didn’t like what I had cooked).

What I did not understand for a long time was that the rule said we couldn’t eat meat, not that we had to eat fish. In the winter when I was growing up, Fridays usually meant “salt cod” which my parents bought in bulk in the fall. Nothing like facing that stack of split, salted cod every time I went to the shed and thinking “good grief, when are we going to run out?”

Of course, since it was cheap it wasn’t limited to Fridays but on Fridays you didn’t even have the relief of “scrunchions”/“grillades de lard”, those bits of crispy, fried salted fatback which helped to make plain boiled potatoes and salt cod palatable to a kid.
 
My mother always just cooked meatless on Fridays. She said that she wasn’t going to cook two meals, one with meat and one without, just to appease the kids. We always ate meatless on Fridays all year round.

But we did know that technically we could eat meat if we wanted to during Lent. I remember when my mother explained the rules to me when I was little, I felt proud that I was making that sacrifice like the adults did, particularly when I was going through my first St. Therese Little Way phase. 👍
 
MissRose73 said:
When I was under age 14, my mother ensured that all Fridays and Ash Wednesday were meatless even though my sister and I were under the age. I am sure we were not alone on that part. Also, we were to try to give up something, pray extra, and/or do something nice for someone for the penitential practices.

Just wondering: how many parents have their children under age 14 participate in Meatless Ash Wednesday and Fridays? How many parents have their children participate in some way doing some type of prayer and/or some form of alms giving?

For more good detail… usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/questions-and-answers-about-lent.cfm
Click to expand...
When I was young, it was meatless Fridays and Ash Wednesday for all. When I become a father, it will be likewise, assuming my children have a decent state of health. My mother served us good alternatives, such as shrimp fried rice or macaroni and cheese and my dad bought catfish. (Now mind, I am not a heavy fan of seafood, but they were good choices for one day per week.)

I do not know where your children go to school, but in the public middle school I attended, meatless alternatives were available, including nachos and cheese year round.

(Disclaimer: no one in my family has serious medical conditions which preclude eating meatless.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top