Fridays all year long

[agp2176]

My wife and I don’t eat meat on Friday and during Lent we abstain on Wednesday and Friday.

As to Fridays it’s a traditional we choose to hold onto. The Wednesdays during lent in something we offer up.

God bless

Tony

 

[ncjohn]

Then you need to be doing something else as well. The whole point is not to just change your dietary intake for a day, it is to be a penitential act. If it’s no big deal for you, then how is that in any way penitential?

~Liza

I do it as a discipline to bring myself into solidarilty with those who don’t have a choice. I also do it as a way of bringing myself closer to God through having my thoughts redirected with each food choice I make that day. It is one of many acts of devotion and piety I use to help keep my focus and those are not limited to Fridays. There is far more to “penance” than punishment since its ultimate purpose is conversion and a turning toward God.

Thanks for the question though.

 

[CarrieH]

I’m not much of a meat-eater anyway, on-again off-again vegetarian. But even in my omnivorous phases, I abstain from meat on Fridays all year long.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Then you need to be doing something else as well. The whole point is not to just change your dietary intake for a day, it is to be a penitential act. If it’s no big deal for you, then how is that in any way penitential?

~Liza

The penitential act is obeying the Church and her authority. The point is the Church made a discipline and we follow it.

 

[Red_Meg]

Same here. Today, for example, is part of the Octave of Easter, a 8 day long celebration of Christ’s Ressurection.

So we are having meat tonight. The vast majority of Friday’s we abstain.

We’re the same-- year-round, except Fridays within the Octave of Easter or Christmas, and Solemnities that land on a Friday (like St. Joseph did just a few weeks ago.) Several of my kids piped up tonight when they asked me what was for dinner tonight and I told them Tandoori Chicken-- “But Mom! It’s Friday!”

Margaret

 

[Seatuck]

Not on fridays.Old rules
Not on wednesdays. Reparition for abortions

Are you in the US? So , do you pick something each Friday to abstain from or do you do the same thing every Friday?

 

[Seatuck]

Church documents on penance that might be helpful.

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini_en.html

usccb.org/lent/2008/Penance_and_Abstinence.pdf

 

[Seatuck]

do you try to NOT eat meat on fridays all year long ?
or just during lent?

I try all year but it doesn’t always work out . Sometimes I start out a day intending to abstain and change midway due to family obligations and so forth. This is absolutely something I need to work on.

Those of you who substitute your penance on Friday-
do you pick the same acts or change them? When do you pick them- Friday morning or when you remember.

 

[Seatuck]

The penitential act is obeying the Church and her authority. The point is the Church made a discipline and we follow it.

The Church made a discipline based on our obligation under natural law to do penance. Penitential acts are part of divine law.

 

[jayk15]

All Fridays, all year-- unless they are a Feast day or Solemnity (though we usually end up meatless those days as well).

Isn’t it just if a Solemnity falls on a Friday then one is exempt from Friday abstinence?

 

[Ceil-1]

Isn’t it just if a Solemnity falls on a Friday then one is exempt from Friday abstinence?

Also, the Octaves of Christmas and Easter.

I caught my son munching a hamburger, one Friday. “Oh, I’m saying a rosary, instead.”
That didn’t fly.

We tell our kids that we honor the flesh of Jesus that was nailed to the Cross by abstaining from it.

 

[UncommonGrace]

We tell our kids that we honor the flesh of Jesus that was nailed to the Cross by abstaining from it.

We might borrow that from you.

 

[UncommonGrace]

If you are asking what the requirement of the Church is…

that depends on where you are.

If in the USA…(unless perhaps a local Bishop has asked something else perhaps?)

one is no longer obliged to abstain from meat on fridays (except those of Lent and Good Friday) One is of course recommended to do something when those fridays do not fall on a solemnity. For they are still considered penitential days…

As Jimmy Akin (chief apologist of CA) notes as well.

(in latin/roman rite)

In the US, you don’t have to abstain from meat on Fridays if you substitute another form of penance in its place. That’s the key point. Abstaining from meat is just the easiest route for many people.

 

[thomas_jd]

Are you in the US? So , do you pick something each Friday to abstain from or do you do the same thing every Friday?

I don’t eat meat on fridays. On wednesdays, on a rare occasion, I will substitute some other form of penance. I have found that I did not always substitute another form of penance and wanting to comply with the Bishops directive elected to refrain from meat.
As a meat lover, this penance is a important mortification for me. I need all the help I can get. I live in the U.S.A.

 

[jbm0117]

Why do catholic not fast all year long as the Orthodox and some EC? Why did that change?

 

[Seatuck]

I don’t eat meat on fridays. On wednesdays, on a rare occasion, I will substitute some other form of penance. I have found that I did not always substitute another form of penance and wanting to comply with the Bishops directive elected to refrain from meat.
As a meat lover, this penance is a important mortification for me. I need all the help I can get. I live in the U.S.A.

I need to stop waffling and stick to one thing or the other. I get nervous that I am choosing one or the other out of a matter of convenience. Thanks for your comment.

 

[rotlex]

All year for us. It is just how I was raised, and what the family has done as long as I can remember. The only time I generally eat meat on a Friday, is while on vacation. Even then, if seafood is available, I’ll opt for it, but from time to time, I’ll indulge if vacationing on a Friday.

 

[DeaconsSon87]

All Fridays outside the Christmas and Easter seasons which are not feasts or solemnities…

 

[joplee]

In the US, you don’t have to abstain from meat on Fridays if you substitute another form of penance in its place. That’s the key point. Abstaining from meat is just the easiest route for many people.

Here in the USA we are urged to practice Friday Penance but it is no longer binding under pain of sin. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (USA) issued a statement in 1966 titled Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence. Here is an excerpt from that statement that Seatuck in post #27 so thoughtfully gave us.The red bold is my emphasis.

1. 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:

a. 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.

b. 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

The Conference of Catholic Bishops are permitted to do this as outlined in Canon Law.

Canon 1253 It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely (my emphasis) the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

I have not in the past either abstained from meat on all Fridays or did other forms of penance. As I grow in my faith, however, I want to start doing some sort of special recognition of Christ in my life and what He has done for me. As today is Friday, I am going to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet (as close to 3:00 as I can). Going forward I want to remember and honor what Jesus did for us on that Friday so long long ago. I want to do it out of love.

For those of you who have in the past and continue to offer some sort of Penance on all Fridays, I commend you. It will not be difficult for me to pray (just remember!) but I will do it to honor Christ. All those who offer something up (meat) I am sure it is not too difficult. It is not the difficulty that makes it a penance, but the fact that we honor our Lord. IMHO.

 

[roveau]

I made a decision to not eat meat on Fridays all year round because it is easier to remember than to think up a different sacrifice for every Friday. I like the idea that it is traditional too, that’s how we did it as kids… and my mother did it until she could no longer cook for herself.

So it’s fish every Friday. I don’t like fish so I just get a 95 cent can of Tuna in Brine and that’s my protein… with a meal with several different veggies with natural rice. It’s not bad if you add a slight sprinkle of raw sugar to the tuna (straight out of the can) and plenty of freshly cracked black pepper. Yum… and inexpensive.