Eating After Midnight on Good Friday

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turtle18

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Are you breaking the Good Friday fast if you eat after midnight on Friday? Technically it is not "your’ next day even though it is Saturday. What if you are a night owl who wakes up at noon and goes to bed at 3 am (Not my particular case but I am just asking.)
In my particular case, I binged around 2 am on Saturday morning. Not because I was hungry but because I was stressed. I do acknowlege the bingeing was a sin but I wonder if I added to the sinfulness of it because of the Good Friday Fast?
 
The example you posted is my case right now. I’ve been doing a noon to 3 or 4am cycle. I ate at 1am. Technically it was a new day for me, but the same waking day. I don’t think it was a big deal.
 
turtle18 said:
Are you breaking the Good Friday fast if you eat after midnight on Friday? Technically it is not "your’ next day even though it is Saturday. What if you are a night owl who wakes up at noon and goes to bed at 3 am (Not my particular case but I am just asking.)
In my particular case, I binged around 2 am on Saturday morning. Not because I was hungry but because I was stressed. I do acknowlege the bingeing was a sin but I wonder if I added to the sinfulness of it because of the Good Friday Fast?
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No you did not break the fast.
 
I believe that Fr. Vincent Serpa addressed just this sort of thing in the Apologetics forum. He said that after midnight it’s a new day, so don’t worry. I’m sure you could do a search on that forum and find his answer.
 
For what’s it worth I’d like to add my:twocents: Let me give you a
very simple & common solution. It’s not going to be a religious answer, but it will address the after Midnight issue.
What happens on New Years Eve, when the clock strikes Mid-
night? It’s the start of a new day and a New Year.
So, don’t sweat it. It’s Okay. :yup:
 
The fast is from midnight to midnight. At midnight you can eat whatever you want, including cow!

🙂
 
Standard or Daylight Savings midnight? 😃

We used to worry things like that. As I recall one could use either.
 
While one can certainly try to offer a technical answer in legally interpretation the canonical requirements et al, I think that it is better to just use common sense and discretion.

In the days when Catholics were required to abstain from meat every Friday, you would have a fair amount of people who would wait outside the late night chili place until after midnight and such, because they wanted to “technically” keep faithful. But was this keeping in the spirit of the law?

Nowadays, it seems like there are a lot of people who eat after midnight for legitimate reasons. Should they abstain/fast on the Thursday into Friday or the Friday into Saturday or both or neither or what? Really, I believe that it comes down to individual circumstances. One has to use good judgement, then. Did you come home a little later than normal and what your spouse left for dinner (that you may have otherwise had before midnight) was meat? Well, go ahead and have it! Do you eat your meals after midnight all the time? Then abstain on whatever is “Friday” to you, just as long as you do it one of the nights. Are you a nightowl up for a late night snack and its after midnight? You may be without obligation, so it would be alright to have meat, but there would be nothing wrong with exercising a devotion of continuing the fast, either. So, without trying to excuse yourself for no good reason, try to be reasonable and don’t worry too much.
 
There’s an old saying. Nothing good happens after midnight. Or is it 2 am? Whatever. Let this be a lesson for you. Get to bed early and you’ll never have to worry about this sort of thing.
 
Seminarian_X said:
There’s an old saying. Nothing good happens after midnight. Or is it 2 am? Whatever. Let this be a lesson for you. Get to bed early and you’ll never have to worry about this sort of thing.
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I like to say that, “Nothing good happens before 11 PM!”
 
I’m sure you’re fine, even though the Good Friday fast is already a very easy “fast”😉 I mean, 2 small meals and 1 large meal is not exactly a strict requirement in the first place.
 
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