Fish and Lent and the Church

  • Thread starter Thread starter billcu1
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
My late father would only eat fish in a restaurant. He hated canned fish but loved his Vita herrings packed in wine sauce.
 
As far as canned fish, I enjoy a good tuna salad sandwich made with canned tuna. And I snack on sardines and crackers
 
TMC said:
I don’t think that the idea that “fish are not animals” is either accurate
Click to expand...
It is not accurate. Fish, of which there are several major types, are indeed animals. Unfortunately, far too many people use the word ‘animal’ as a synonym of mammal. For example, you hear the phrase, ‘animals and birds’. The phrase is wrong because birds are animals. The speaker normally means mammals and birds.
 
It is my understanding that the Church has never said we should eat fish on Fridays although I know quite a few people of my mother’s generation who think it is mandatory.

The Church forbade the eating of meat of Fridays from the likes of cows, goats, pigs, sheep. It did not forbid fish. So people ate fish on Fridays because it was not forbidden. Not because the Church said we must eat fish.
 
billcu1 said:
I was always confused by eating fish and sea food on Fridays during Lent. I talked to a priest at my Parrish I know and he told me fish were not animals. He said “You can look at them and see they’re not animals”. And I guess in Jesus’ day, anything from the sea wasn’t an animal. I’m not to clear on this can anyone help me understand what he was saying?
Click to expand...
Of course fish are animals. And what is referred to as “meat” is, usually, muscle tissue. The tissue we eat from fish serves exactly the same purpose in a cow.
 
Last edited:
TomH1 said:
40.png
HomeschoolDad:
but fish … are basically automatons
Click to expand...
I am afraid that is not at all true.
Click to expand...
Well, to paraphrase Samuel L Jackson’s soliloquy about dogs in Pulp Fiction, a fish doesn’t have much personality. And personality goes a long way.

I would love to post that clip, but there is language that would not exactly pass muster at the weekly Legion of Mary meeting. Google or search YouTube if you’re interested.
 
I was really confused by what he meant when he said “You can just
look at them and tell they aren’t animals.” I have never heard of
such a thing. He added “anything that comes from the sea.” IDK if
this was a belief from Jesus’ day or what. As I said before they
are full of parasites more so than many of the land animals but
the same parasites affect us. more so than anything that affects
plants.
 
Last edited:
Some do, some don’t. It depends to some extent on the species. However even the ones with little obvious personality I would hesitate to call ‘automatons’ (because while I am not privy to it, I assume there is something going on in their brains).
 
Last edited:
Zoology certainly says they are animals, morphology IDK.
 
Last edited:
HomeschoolDad said:
I would love to post that clip, but there is language that would not exactly pass muster at the weekly Legion of Mary meeting.
Click to expand...
uh, yeah, better not post a clip of him reading that bedtime story, either!

Even my mother laughed her head off at that one . . .
 
dochawk said:
40.png
HomeschoolDad:
I would love to post that clip, but there is language that would not exactly pass muster at the weekly Legion of Mary meeting.
Click to expand...
uh, yeah, better not post a clip of him reading that bedtime story, either!

Even my mother laughed her head off at that one . . .
Click to expand...
Bedtime story? I had in mind the scene in the diner where Vincent and Jules are debating the merits of eating pork.
 
I was told by Fr. any food from the sea was ok for Fridays,
shellfish or anything. Because it wasn’t considered meat. Maybe I
already said this. Anyway, so no it’s not just a “fish” day. I
certainly can’t look at them and tell they aren’t animals, he sees
what I don’t, I will have to ask someone else in the clergy about
this.
 
Last edited:
HomeschoolDad said:
Bedtime story?
Click to expand...
There is a video out there of him reading, “Go the **** to Sleep”. As much as I generally avoid such language, it’s hysterical, although anyone who hasn’t had small children can’t get the full effect . . .
billcu1 said:
I was told by Fr. any food from the sea was ok for Fridays,
shellfish or anything.
Click to expand...
For RC rules, yes, as far as I know.

The Eastern Churches take a narrower view, which hasn’t changed since the second century. (I assume that the RC had the same position long ago, and I mean long before Trent, not second millennium).

Fish are not permitted in the east, as animals (but may be allowed on Saturday and/or Sunday during Lent, which varies by church).

“sea bugs” are another story–crustaceans, shrimp, etc. (lobster as delicacy rather than something only the very poor had to eat–probably coinciding with the practical availability of melted butter . . .).

All in all, the strict Lenten diet is pretty much what the very poor ate during the first couple of centuries . . .
 
billcu1 said:
I was always confused by eating fish and sea food on Fridays during Lent. I talked to a priest at my Parrish I know and he told me fish were not animals. He said “You can look at them and see they’re not animals”. And I guess in Jesus’ day, anything from the sea wasn’t an animal. I’m not to clear on this can anyone help me understand what he was saying?
Click to expand...
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologiae > Second Part of the Second Part > Question 147 Fasting, Article 8. Whether it is fitting that those who fast should be bidden to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods?
I answer that, As stated above (Article 6), fasting was instituted by the Church in order to bridle the concupiscences of the flesh, which regard pleasures of touch in connection with food and sex. Wherefore the Church forbade those who fast to partake of those foods which both afford most pleasure to the palate, and besides are a very great incentive to lust. Such are the flesh of animals that take their rest on the earth, and of those that breathe the air and their products, such as milk from those that walk on the earth, and eggs from birds. For, since such like animals are more like man in body, they afford greater pleasure as food, and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust. Hence the Church has bidden those who fast to abstain especially from these foods.
Click to expand...
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3147.htm
 
no, I haven’t even heard of that.

Now I’llhave to look . …
 
billcu1 said:
I was told by Fr. any food from the sea was ok for Fridays,
shellfish or anything. Because it wasn’t considered meat. Maybe I
already said this. Anyway, so no it’s not just a “fish” day. I
certainly can’t look at them and tell they aren’t animals, he sees
what I don’t, I will have to ask someone else in the clergy about
this.
Click to expand...
Sounds like your priest was explaining it badly. What he said is true – in a sense, if you look at the Latin language. In Latin, carnis (from which we get the word carnivore, meat-eater) means the flesh of mammals and birds, and THAT is what we are forbidden to eat on the Fridays of Lent. Note, the definition of carnis does not include seafood.

Jimmy Akin has more on this:

http://jimmyakin.com/2004/02/the_law_of_abst.html
 
Last edited:
He probably meant, like many do, that they are not mammals. The phrase, ‘anything that comes from the sea’, is wrong and all too often people lump everything from the sea together. Animals in the whale family, seals and sea lions, etc. are mammals. Not everything that we eat and call ‘fish’ are fish. A lot of what we eat from the sea are crustaceans or molluscs. Fish are no more or less parasitised than land animals. However, they have different parasites not the same.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top