If your birthday falls on a Friday

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If your birthday is on a Friday and you normally abstain from meat on that day (as recommended by the Church), is it okay to eat meat on that day? If so, is one obliged to perform another form of penance?
 
MH84 said:
If your birthday is on a Friday and you normally abstain from meat on that day (as recommended by the Church), is it okay to eat meat on that day? If so, is one obliged to perform another form of penance?
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Yes, you should substitute another penance.
 
MH84 said:
If your birthday is on a Friday and you normally abstain from meat on that day (as recommended by the Church), is it okay to eat meat on that day? If so, is one obliged to perform another form of penance?
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I presume you are not speaking of a Friday during Lent, during which abstaining from meat is mandatory except for those persons exempt by age or some other legitimate reason.

On other Fridays abstaining is one’s choice, and while substituting another penance is highly recommended, this is not obligatory.
 
Leopard said:
I presume you are not speaking of a Friday during Lent, during which abstaining from meat is mandatory except for those persons exempt by age or some other legitimate reason.

On other Fridays abstaining is one’s choice, and while substituting another penance is highly recommended, this is not obligatory.
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Good point I just assumed we were not talking about Lent. However substitution is obligatory.
 
MH84 said:
During non-Lent, is substitution of the no-meat penance obligatory?
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There’s differing opinion about whether some form of penance is obligatory on non-Lent Fridays. I’d do some form of penance every Friday regardless, just to be on the cautious side.
 
My penance is hanging out in these forums so I eat meat on Fridays outside of Lent, especially on my birthday.
 
MH84 said:
If your birthday is on a Friday and you normally abstain from meat on that day (as recommended by the Church), is it okay to eat meat on that day? If so, is one obliged to perform another form of penance?
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Eat the meat. Abstain from your birthday cake.

😃
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
Good point I just assumed we were not talking about Lent. However substitution is obligatory.
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As another poster noted, there is a difference of opinion on whether substitution of another Friday penance is obligatory. Jimmy Akin explored this question here:

Friday Penance, Part 1

Friday Penance, Part 2

Friday Penance, Part 3

I think Mr. Akin’s thesis concerning the relevant laws is reasonable, and that he has shown, at least in the absence of further instruction from Rome, that the obligation for Catholics to abstain from meat, or substitute another penance, on all Fridays outside of Lent and Good Friday does not exist under current Church law, although the practice is still highly recommended.

On Mr. Akin’s blog, as here, there are differences of opinion concerning this.
 
Mr. Akin is not always 100% correct.
Nor am I, here is what the Bishops said in:

Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence

Christ Died for
Our Salvation
on Friday
  1. Gratefully remembering this, Catholic peoples from time
    immemorial have set apart Friday for special penitential
    observance by which they gladly suffer with Christ that they
    may one day be glorified with Him. This is the heart of the
    tradition of abstinence from meat on Friday…
  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.
  1. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance
    throughout the year, …
  2. 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.
  3. 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 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.
  4. 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…
 
  1. 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.
  2. In summary, let it **NOT **be said that by this action, implementing the spirit of renewal coming out of the Council, we have abolished Friday, repudiated the holy traditions of our fathers, or diminished the insistence of the Church on the fact of sin and the need for penance. Rather, let it be proved by the spirit in which we enter upon prayer and penance, not excluding fast and abstinence freely chosen,…
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
Mr. Akin is not always 100% correct.
Nor am I, here is what the Bishops said in:

Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence …
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Yes, Mr. Akin addressed this:
Jimmy Akin:
…The U.S. norms are found in a document titled On Penance and Abstinence, dated Nov. 18, 1966, which despite the revision of the Code of Canon Law remains in force. Before we look at the norms provided by that document, a word about it is in order: Like virtually everything a national conference produces, it’s a compromise document and reflects tensions between different parties in the bishops’ conference in 1966. Some bishops undoubtedly didn’t want to make the changes the document provides, while others may have wanted to go even farther. One thing the bishops were united in, however, was a desire not to be perceived as gutting the Church’s penitential practice. When one reads the whole document, it is clear that the bishops are bending over backwards to avoid conveying this impression.

The effect of the considerations is that one must read the document carefully. One must do that with any law, but particularly with controversial compromise texts like this one, a person trying to determine what the law is must pay very careful attention to the language being used by the document and what it says regarding the faithful’s obligations under law. In this document, it is particularly necessary to distinguish between the language of law and the language of exhortation. The former pertains to the legal change the bishops were making, and the latter pertains to the pastoral “spin” the bishops want put on the situation. As we’ll see, they remove legal obligations while going on to exhort people to do things freely that were formally obligatory. In this way they seek to avoid the impression that they are gutting the Church’s penitential practice.

Now, here are the norms the document provides:
Code: 
1. 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;

2. 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;

3. 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 as 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 in 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 big legal change comes in norm #3, where the bishops state that “we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence as binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday.” So the obligation to abstain from meat is terminated. The question becomes: What obligation, if any, have the bishops put in its place?

The clause “as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday” is consistent with the idea that they did establish another obligation or a mandate to do penance in some form on Friday, but it also is consistent with the idea that they did not establish a new obligation. If the latter is the case then the remark is simply noting that previously abstinence had been the only prescribed way of observing Friday. Other acts of penance could be performed on Friday, but they had to be in addition to abstinece.

To find out what other obligation there may be, one must look at the surrounding text of the norms. When one does this, one discovers several things.

(continued)
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quote=Jimmy Akin

To find out what other obligation there may be, one must look at the surrounding text of the norms. When one does this, one discovers several things.

The first, per norm #3, is that the bishops “especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday . . . we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.” This is an exhortation and as such does not establish a legal obligation. So abstinence continued to be a recommended practice for the observance of Friday, but not a legally binding one.

The next thing, per norm #1, is that Friday continues to be a day of penance. The norm clarifies the sense in which this is to be understood by explaining that it is “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.” This qualification strongly suggests that, though Friday is a day of penance, it is not one on which all of the faithful are legally bound or bound under pain of sin to do penance. Instead, “those who seek perfection” will do penance on the day. If the bishops intended all to be bound to do penance on Friday, they would not have used such restrictive language.

This interpretation is confirmed by norm #2, which states that “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.” Again, the language of exhortation is used (“we urge”) rather than the language of mandate. Thus no obligation is created. If the bishops intended to create an obligation then they would have used other language, such as “all are required to prepare for that weekly Easter.”

The norms–the part of the document that would create a legal obligation if there was one–thus fails to do so. As a result, there is no obligation in the United States to practice penance on Friday, but Friday remains a day of penance which the bishops have urged all to do penance and, in particular, recommended the continued practice of abstience.

Reading the remainder of the document confirms the interpretation outlined above. As a compromise document and a controversial one, the stress that is placed on the recommendation to continue to do penance and to abstain is great, and with an inattentive reading the strength of the recommendation might lead one to think that there is an obligation to do penance on Friday. But a careful reading of the text shows that the language being used in the text never strays from the language of exhortation to the language of legal mandate.

There also is a dog that didn’t bark in this text.

The bishops were so concerned to avoid the impression that they were gutting the practice of penance that if they were creating an alternative obligation then they could not have failed to underscore this point. It would have been the most crushing rejoinder to their potential critics if they had said something like, “Though we have terminated the obligation to abstain, the faithful are nevertheless bound to perform a penance of their choice on Fridays and thus the Catholic practice of Friday penance remains in place even though the form the penance takes is now left to the determination of the individual.” The fact that the bishops nowhere say this or anything like it strongly indicates that it was not the bishops’ intent to create an alternative obligation. Calling attention to the alternative obligation by frankly stating it would have utterly invalidated the criticism the bishops were most concerned to avoid.

But the fact that the bishops nowhere state an alternative obligation indicates that one does not exist. Legal obligations do not exist that are not legislated.

Thus we conclude that the American bishops have exercised their competence, later acknowledged by canon 1253 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, to determine more particularly the manner of abstinence by restricting it to a few days a year (Ash Wednesday, the Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday–the last being part of Triduum rather than Lent) and by recommending the continued practice of abstinence on other Fridays. Rome confirmed this document, and thus it is the law for Latin Catholics in the United States.

This also is the understanding indicated in the Canon Law Society of America’s New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law. The commentary on canon 1253 summarizes the obligations and recommendations without indicating that a legal obligation to do penance continues to exist on typical Fridays of the year.

Posted by Jimmy Akin in Law | Permalink
[/quote]

jimmyakin.org/2004/07/since_tomorrow_.html
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
There is a difference between “obligation” and “legal obligation”…
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No offense intended, but I don’t think this is correct. Either we are obliged to do something by someone with the authority to impose this obligation, or else we are not. If the authority to impose an obligation is genuine, it is legal. If the authority is not genuine, then it is not legal and no moral obligation is imposed.

Could you please explain further what you mean and provide references?
 
Leopard said:
I presume you are not speaking of a Friday during Lent, during which abstaining from meat is mandatory except for those persons exempt by age or some other legitimate reason.

On other Fridays abstaining is one’s choice, and while substituting another penance is highly recommended, this is not obligatory.
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I keep forgetting this forum is read world-wide. My answer applies to the United States only. Other countries particular Church law may require substitution of another penance, or even still require abstaining from meat, depending on how their bishops have ruled.
 
Leopard said:
No offense intended, but I don’t think this is correct. Either we are obliged to do something by someone with the authority to impose this obligation, or else we are not. If the authority to impose an obligation is genuine, it is legal. If the authority is not genuine, then it is not legal and no moral obligation is imposed.

Could you please explain further what you mean and provide references?
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What I mean is you won’t find legal wording in Canon Law requiring a substitute penance on Fridays. However you will find the Church teaching that Friday is still a Day of penance, that has not changed, to be observed by all Catholics by performing some penitential action. That act is no longer defined specifically by the Churches Law, but still remains an obligation, as an acknowledgment of our sinfulness. Some will look on this as no longer necessary, because we no longer commit serious sin. The Church thinks otherwise.
 
  1. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year.
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The focus on Friday remains strong because of its traditional practice, along with the readily identifiable abstinance from meat. However, it is notable that EVERY day of Lent is a penitential day. Still, must we abstain or commit ourselves to particular pennance on each and every day in this period in a particular way? Or is it sufficient to have a more general sense of penitance? If the latter suffices in Lent, would it not also be enough on Fridays throughout the year? In some sense, then, I think that simply being mindful and the significance of the day is more important than the particular commitment to actual practices. Though certainly the latter would appropriately flow from the former.

To return to the initial question: I believe that a birthday is a natural day of celebration. In some ways, it might be said to supercede the more penitential aspects of the Church calendar. Perhaps simply being mindful of the value of one’s own life (especially in light of the suffering and death of others) and offering it in a grateful manner that day is the best way to practice a certain sense of what is essential.

And, worst case scenario, you could always ask your pastor for a special dispensation. Afterall, if they can offer it for St. Patrick’s Day during Lent, why not your birthday!
 
Because my birthday is during Lent, when it falls on a Friday, it is a no-brainer for me. I abstain from meat. However, if it were to fall on a non-Lent Friday, I would still abstain from meat.
 
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