Fasting before Triduum masses

[jonpd]

I know that the current rule is to fast 1 hour before mass, but in the days before VII and as practiced by many traditional Catholics people fasted since midnight for a morning mass. What would one do to observe the traditional fast if the mass is in the evening as on Holy Thursday or Easter Vigil? Our Easter Vigil will be at 10 PM so I can’t see fasting since midnight Saturday AM as practical.

 

[thistle]

I know that the current rule is to fast 1 hour before mass, but in the days before VII and as practiced by many traditional Catholics people fasted since midnight for a morning mass. What would one do to observe the traditional fast if the mass is in the evening as on Holy Thursday or Easter Vigil? Our Easter Vigil will be at 10 PM so I can’t see fasting since midnight Saturday AM as practical.

The current rule is fasting at least one hour before receiving Communion and not before Mass.
However, there is nothing to stop anyone (without a medical condition) from having a longer fast.

 

[puzzleannie]

I know that the current rule is to fast 1 hour before mass, but in the days before VII and as practiced by many traditional Catholics people fasted since midnight for a morning mass. What would one do to observe the traditional fast if the mass is in the evening as on Holy Thursday or Easter Vigil? Our Easter Vigil will be at 10 PM so I can’t see fasting since midnight Saturday AM as practical.

it is my recollection that the Easter Vigil used to begin later so that communion was received after midnight (as at Midnight Mass on Christmas) so you were fine eating dinner on Saturday. the Lenten fast never required you to go without eating completely in any case. I am not sure if you are speaking of Lenten fasting or the fast before communion. right after I made my first communion the rule was changed to 3 hours before communion. I honestly don’t remember going to Mass in the evening on Holy Thursday in my childhood, but I vividly remember my first vigil in HS how exciting, I fell in love with it.

I would suggest do the fasting disciplines that accord with the Mass you attend since the traditional fasting practices as you say may not mesh with the new schedule of things.

 

[malphono]

I know that the current rule is to fast 1 hour before mass, but in the days before VII and as practiced by many traditional Catholics people fasted since midnight for a morning mass. What would one do to observe the traditional fast if the mass is in the evening as on Holy Thursday or Easter Vigil? Our Easter Vigil will be at 10 PM so I can’t see fasting since midnight Saturday AM as practical.

I cannot put my hand on the instruction, but I seem to recall that the normal rules for “Euchristic fast” did not apply on Holy Thursday: even prior to the “revised” Holy Week rites of 1955, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper was done late in the day (sometime between None and Compline, in lieu of Vespers). According to “liturgical time” the day already changed, so there was no real issue with the Eucharistic fast, whether from midnight or 3 hours. And of course no one would have been expected to observe a strict “black fast” for 16 or more hours anyway. (NB: Those who attended the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, though, would be bound by the Eucharistic fast (whether from midnight or the 3 hours), since that Mass is in the morning.)

For Good Friday, prior to the 1955 “revisions” the Solemn Liturgical Action was done early in the day, so there would have been no problem with the normal Eucharistic fast from midnight. After 1955, the service was done later in the day (after None), but the Eucharistic fast had been reduced by Pius XII to 3 hours anyway, so even without the reckoning of “liturgical time” it would not have been a problem.

Easter Vigil never presented a problem since the Vigil was again after the Vespers hours, so again there was no problem.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Note that in earlier times no one but the priest received on Good Friday. That may have changed with the 1955 revisions or with the post VII revisions. I think the latter, but my memory is fuzzy on that.

As I recall the fast changed to 3 hours about the time of the 1955 revisions. Before that the consecration at all masses had to be after mid-night and before noon.