Friday penance

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anilorak13ska

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I am from Poland, where we still abstained from meat on all Fridays of the year long after Vatican II. But a while after immigrating to the US with my parents, we stopped that practice since it wasn’t required. (No one apparently explained to my parents that while the meat abstinence was optional, some other penance is supposed to take its place.) As an adult, I was a vegetarian for a while, so it really became a moot point for me to avoid meat on Fridays, as it wasn’t any sort of sacrifice to me.

Recently, I’ve started to try to become better catechized as I’ve returned to the faith, and I feel that I really need to find something to mark Friday penance during the year. What do you all do/not do for this practice? I brought this up in Confession last time, but it didn’t get addressed by the priest (probably because I had other things he felt I should be working on first, which I have been doing).

So, what do you take on or abstain from on Fridays all year long?
 
I abstain from meat on all Fridays. I, too, feel the need to do a little more so I also fast on all Fridays. I eat just one meal (dinner) throughout the day even though you are allowed 2 smaller meals that cannot add up to the 1 full meal. This is just a personal preference for me.

In addition to the Rosary, I also say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy while meditating on Christ’s Passion.
 
anilorak13ska said:
So, what do you take on or abstain from on Fridays all year long?
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Meat.

I used to fast also—true fast, no food after lunch until breakfast the following day—but then I fell ill. (My condition was not caused by the fasting, but it is exacerbated by it.) I intend to start fasting again as soon as I get better. The spiritual benefits, for me, are unmatched by any other practice.
 
anilorak13ska said:
I am from Poland, where we still abstained from meat on all Fridays of the year long after Vatican II. But a while after immigrating to the US with my parents, we stopped that practice since it wasn’t required. (No one apparently explained to my parents that while the meat abstinence was optional, some other penance is supposed to take its place.) As an adult, I was a vegetarian for a while, so it really became a moot point for me to avoid meat on Fridays, as it wasn’t any sort of sacrifice to me.

Recently, I’ve started to try to become better catechized as I’ve returned to the faith, and I feel that I really need to find something to mark Friday penance during the year. What do you all do/not do for this practice? I brought this up in Confession last time, but it didn’t get addressed by the priest (probably because I had other things he felt I should be working on first, which I have been doing).

So, what do you take on or abstain from on Fridays all year long?
Click to expand...
I try to abstain from meat, but when I can’t I will take time out to pray more, especially the Rosary, and I sometimes go to Adoration on Fridays.
 
I eat lighter, and try to avoid meat (as its usually not practical to abstain entirely with my family) and I pray the Rosary focusing on the sorrowful mysteries.
 
I asked one of the CAF priests (I work 24 hour shifts sometimes on Fridays). He said say an extra rosary or meditate/reflect on the mysteries. That was just two suggestions. 🙂

Today I am home so no meat for me.
 
anilorak13ska said:
I am from Poland, where we still abstained from meat on all Fridays of the year long after Vatican II. But a while after immigrating to the US with my parents, we stopped that practice since it wasn’t required. (No one apparently explained to my parents that while the meat abstinence was optional, some other penance is supposed to take its place.) As an adult, I was a vegetarian for a while, so it really became a moot point for me to avoid meat on Fridays, as it wasn’t any sort of sacrifice to me.

Recently, I’ve started to try to become better catechized as I’ve returned to the faith, and I feel that I really need to find something to mark Friday penance during the year. What do you all do/not do for this practice? I brought this up in Confession last time, but it didn’t get addressed by the priest (probably because I had other things he felt I should be working on first, which I have been doing).

So, what do you take on or abstain from on Fridays all year long?
Click to expand...
If you are now in the United States, this is part of what the bishops of that country decreed as regards Friday penitential observance.
*19. Changing circumstances, including economic, dietary, and social elements, have made some of our people feel that the renunciation of the eating of meat is not always and for everyone the most effective means of practicing penance. Meat was once an exceptional form of food; now it is commonplace.
  1. Accordingly, since the spirit of penance primarily suggests that we discipline ourselves in that which we enjoy most, to many in our day abstinence from meat no longer implies penance, while renunciation of other things would be more penitential.
  2. For these and related reasons, the Catholic bishops of the United States, far from downgrading the traditional penitential observance of Friday, and motivated precisely by the desire to give the spirit of penance greater vitality, especially on Fridays, the day that Jesus died,urge our Catholic people henceforth to be guided by the following norms.
  3. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified.
  4. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ.
  5. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law. Our expectation is based on the following considerations:
  • We shall thus freely and out of love for Christ Crucified show our solidarity with the generations of believers to whom this practice frequently became,especially in times of persecution and of great poverty,no mean evidence of fidelity to Christ and His Church.
  • We shall thus also remind ourselves that as Christians, although immersed in the world and sharing its life, we must preserve a saving and necessary difference from the spirit of the world. Our deliberate,personal abstinence from meat, more especially because no longer required by law, will be an outward sign of inward spiritual values that we cherish.
  1. Every Catholic Christian understands that the fast and abstinence regulations admit of change, unlike the commandments and precepts of that unchanging divine moral law which the Church must today and always defend as immutable. This said, we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence,except as noted above for Lent. We stress this so that “no” scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience, confessions, or personal decisions on this point.
  2. Perhaps we should warn those who decide to keep the Friday abstinence for reasons of personal piety and special love that they must not pass judgment on those who elect to substitute other penitential observances. Friday, please God, will acquire among us other forms of penitential witness which may become as much a part of the devout way of life in the future as Friday abstinence from meat. In this connection we have foremost in mind the modern need for self-discipline in the use of stimulants and for a renewed emphasis on the virtue of temperance, especially in the use of alcoholic beverages.
  3. It would bring great glory to God and good to souls if Fridays found our people doing volunteer work in hospitals, visiting the sick, serving the needs of the aged and the lonely, instructing the young in the Faith, participating as Christians in community affairs, and meeting our obligations to our families, our friends,our neighbors, and our community, including our parishes, with a special zeal born of the desire to add the merit of penance to the other virtues exercised in good works born of living faith.*
    usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm
 
Thank you all for your feedback. Thanks especially to Don for the extensive quote. As I think about it, it seems silly that just because abstaining from meat for me is “no big deal” doesn’t mean it can’t still be meaningful, especially when in a group/out of the house, or even just in the mere act of meal planning.

Fasting has always been a spiritual help for me, but I’m currently unable to fast due to pregnancy and breastfeeding.

I have started to go to monthly confession on Friday, so that’s one Friday out of each month, but I like the idea of carving out additional prayer/devotion time of some sort every Friday.

Thanks again for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
anilorak13ska said:
Thank you all for your feedback. Thanks especially to Don for the extensive quote. As I think about it, it seems silly that just because abstaining from meat for me is “no big deal” doesn’t mean it can’t still be meaningful, especially when in a group/out of the house, or even just in the mere act of meal planning.

Fasting has always been a spiritual help for me, but I’m currently unable to fast due to pregnancy and breastfeeding.

I have started to go to monthly confession on Friday, so that’s one Friday out of each month, but I like the idea of carving out additional prayer/devotion time of some sort every Friday.

Thanks again for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
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As my priest says, “You’re on the road to holiness!”. 👍
 
I now rarely if ever eat meat…

A friend pointed out to me when I was starting to learn re RC that I eat daily less than we are "allowed"on a fast day …Which is true, but then with a serious chronic illness…But i cannot eat what is called a full meal . A three course meal would last me all day… by splitting it into three …

If it is going to help, do it. A great amount of leeway within it all and so much left to our choice and abiliites.
 
Thank you for the feedback. I do wonder why Fridays as days of penance is never talked about in Catechesis classes (which I’ve gone through and taught in the past), nor from the pulpit. How are the common lay folks suposed to know what’s expected of them? Prior to Vatican II, I suppose it was all just passed down from generation to generation, and there wasn’t as much variety, so it was more clear what was expected of us. Just saying.
 
I say an additional five decades of the Rosary.

Sometimes, though, I do abstain from meat, depending on circumstances (where I am and what I can eat and when).
 
/-]
anilorak13ska said:
Thank you for the feedback. I do wonder why Fridays as days of penance is never talked about in Catechesis classes (which I’ve gone through and taught in the past), nor from the pulpit. How are the common lay folks suposed to know what’s expected of them? Prior to Vatican II, I suppose it was all just passed down from generation to generation, and there wasn’t as much variety, so it was more clear what was expected of us. Just saying.
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Right. I remember back in the 1960s when the rule was changed, and all the adult Catholics around me said was that we didn’t have to abstain from meat any more. Somehow it got lost that we were still supposed to perform a Friday penance.
 
I abstain from meat every Friday. I cannot fast because I am a diabetic. I am pondering fasting from something else, like a favorite television program, in order to institute fasting into my life.

Before I became Catholic, when I was a young woman I was able to actually fast. It was an enlightening spiritual experience. I wish I could do so again.
 
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