Is one allowed to eat shrimp on the Lent?

[Ontheway]

Before you take my head off (virtually), I think that you need to take a “chill pill” and understand that while these examples among American Catholics do exist, for many of us – in our fifties and **cradle Catholics **-- we have seen first hand numerous examples of relatives and friends who have used Lent as an excuse to have a weekly lobster salad or shrimo scampi.

However, believe it or not we can “laugh” at these examples and not lose sight of the true meaning of fasting. We can joke at some of the excesses or “legalistic thinking” and understand, appreciate, and try to live the true meaning of Lenten fasting. We can laugh and smile at some of the excesses of “cultural Catholicism” and NOT lose sight of the tenets of the faith.

Despite the attitude expressed by some on this forum, cradle Catholics ARE capable of deep spritual levels of faith experiences.

I hope of you have a joyful and spiritual Lent. I intend to have one at well with the Eucharist, faith sharing in my parish, and… my macaroni and cheese

Hey coachdennis,

Have no fear. Your head is quite safe. I believe that you have captured the intent of my initial, rather “fiery” post. It was a feeble attempt on my part at pointing to what should be the reason for fasting and abstaining.

As for the true meaning, should we not think of fasting as an offering, instead of privation or sacrifice?

The church has done a good job of confusing the rules of lent over the last 50 years, and I understand the people who ask about the details. But, maybe we should pay less attention to rules and focus more on the meaning.

 

[Ontheway]

Nope. Catholics are wimpy fasters. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday only. With strong unofficial encouragement to continue on with the fast and abstinence through Holy Saturday until after the Vigil, at least among the people I know.

The requirements aren’t that big a deal. Abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Fridays in Lent. Fasting on two days of the year. The fact that the requirements aren’t that big a deal should help us to choose to do more, out of love of God, on our own.

–Jen

 

[BluesPicker]

In Cajunland we call them crawfish. Crawfish happens to be my favorite seafood.

Yeah, but crawfish and shrimp ettoufee, and turtle sauce piquant, or fresh water redfish ie. a goo barbequed or stuffed garfish barbequed when prepared and cooked properly are extraordinarily good eatting.

Remember to fast on  Fridays.   I don't eat during the daylight hours during Lent and most of the time  because of my  personal devotion to deliverance.

 However, one can fast too much, and this can happen especially after years of  fasting and abstinence.   This is not good and the Lord doesn't like one to harm their body. 

  Now  fasting is a real chore.

Many Blessings,
BP

 

[maryjk]

Yeah, but crawfish and shrimp ettoufee, and turtle sauce piquant, or fresh water redfish ie. a goo barbequed or stuffed garfish barbequed when prepared and cooked properly are extraordinarily good eatting.

** Remember to fast on Fridays. ** I don’t eat during the daylight hours during Lent and most of the time because of my personal devotion to deliverance.

 However, one can fast too much, and this can happen especially after years of  fasting and abstinence.   This is not good and the Lord doesn't like one to harm their body. 

  Now  fasting is a real chore.

Many Blessings,
BP

Abstain.

 

[maltmom]

I was under the impression that crawfish and shrimp are two different critters.

They are. You must not have realized that I had quoted choliks who called crawfish crayfish. Different areas of the country call them by a different name.

Remember to fast on  Fridays.   I don't eat during the daylight hours during Lent and most of the time  because of my  personal devotion to deliverance.

I’m not sure if you were telling me to remember to fast on Fridays or everyone. You had quoted me so I’m not sure. As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread I am hypoglycemic. My doctor has told me not to fast.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Bargaining with God?

This disucssion takes place every year before the lenten season.
Everyone is concerned with how much they can eat and what they can get away with while they are fasting. What fasting?.

I disagree, I think people want to know so they can be obedient. It’s one thing to bread and water fast, you know just what to do. It’s another to Lenten fast because you can eat so much, so it’s more complicated. It’s hard for me because I am mostly vegetarian, anyway, so I have to find things the Church allows and cut them out myself to fast in a Penitential way. I’m sure the OP just wants to get it right.

 

[Phemie]

Perhaps it was included in the resources listed but also allowable is capybara. At least locally in South America.

*I don’t know if it is allowable if you don’t *happen to live in South America.

Hmm, when did capybara become a fish? Guinea pig is meat and considered a delicacy and what is a capybara but a giant Guinea pig? OK, I’m not a zoologist but I still fail to understand how it can be considered OK to eat capybara. Of course I’m aware that whale meat and seal meat, both of which are mammals, have been allowed through the centuries but I thought that was only because the bishops weren’t zoologists.

 

[ajecphotos]

What comes from the Church is no mere “man made idea”. It has the authority of Christ behind it.

Not quite true as some things the church made people do centuries ago def didn’t come from god! As we all know, some popes of years gone by were evil in the extreme so can we say that what they ‘ruled’ in those days came from god? I don’t think so.

 

[malphono]

Hmm, when did capybara become a fish? Guinea pig is meat and considered a delicacy and what is a capybara but a giant Guinea pig? OK, I’m not a zoologist but I still fail to understand how it can be considered OK to eat capybara. Of course I’m aware that whale meat and seal meat, both of which are mammals, have been allowed through the centuries but I thought that was only because the bishops weren’t zoologists.

It could well be an accommodation (aka “dispensation” or “ekonomia”) the Church has made due to particular circumstances. The principle is to abstain from things that are luxuries (perhaps “niceties” would fit better), not from particular foods simply because they fit a category.

For example, what’s known as “muscle meat” (beef, pork, lamb, poultry, etc) is not generally considered to be absolutely necessary. So, as luxuries, the Church says her children should abstain from partaking of them at certain times. But … I recall being told many years ago that in Argentina (and I think Uruguay as well) beef, of all things, was exempted. If memory serves, it seems to have had to do with the fact that beef was so common it was actually the food of the poor there. I’ve no idea if this is really true or, if so, if it still exists. Perhaps we have an Argentino in the house who could help clarify?

Whale and seal meat are staples of the Inuit (and certain other northern peoples), and without those things they’d have scant little to eat at all. Using my theory, it would make sense for the Church to allow them, else the people could either starve to death or suffer severe malnutrition. (The same would apply in the East, where shellfish & cephalopods have always been allowed during fasting, whereas fin fish are not. The idea stems from the fact that many in the Eastern Mediterranean depended on the sea for a good part of their food supply.) Could be that capybara falls into the same category in certain places?

 

[PacoG]

A popular Latino Lenten dish along the Texas-Mexico border (and possibly throughout the Southwest) is Nopalitos (cactus).

It can be done as a sautee or as an omelet.

Most of the recipes include shrimp.

None include Capovera…

 

[Vico]

Originally in the western Roman Empire, mostly coastal areas, fish was inexpensive and obtainable for the poor. Shellfish was not a delicacy and was not as desirable as fish. During Lent we give up the luxury and quantity and live like the poor. How this is done will vary at different times and places. In the eastern Roman Empire there was more food variety, so the fast and abstinence took a different form of limiting the varieties of food more in levels: such as no meat, no dairy (including eggs), no oil, no fish, no shellfish.

 

[malphono]

Originally in the western Roman Empire, mostly coastal areas, fish was inexpensive and obtainable for the poor. Shellfish was not a delicacy and was not as desirable as fish. During Lent we give up the luxury and quantity and live like the poor. How this is done will vary at different times and places.

Yes.

In the eastern Roman Empire there was more food variety, so the fast and abstinence took a different form of limiting the varieties of food more in levels: such as no meat, no dairy (including eggs), no oil, no fish, no shellfish.

Could be just me today, but isn’t that contradictory? Shellfish was not considered all that desirable, yet it’s proscribed?

In any case, I don’t think there was ever a proscription against shellfish, mollusks, cepalopods, etc. Only “fin fish” (i.e, with a backbone) among the Byzantines. In the Eastern Mediterranean, (and obviously this doesn’t apply to Slav Byzantines), the sea was an important source of food, and shellfish, octopi, etc, were basically considered “junk” and not fit for other than the poor. If one includes shellfish on the list of proscribed foods, people, mainly the poor, who depended on the sea for their food would have had little or nothing at all to eat.

I should add here that, while the traditional rules are generally similar, olive oil was not proscribed in the Syriac Churches.

 

[SMHW]

Hmm, when did capybara become a fish? Guinea pig is meat and considered a delicacy and what is a capybara but a giant Guinea pig? OK, I’m not a zoologist but I still fail to understand how it can be considered OK to eat capybara. Of course I’m aware that whale meat and seal meat, both of which are mammals, have been allowed through the centuries but I thought that was only because the bishops weren’t zoologists.

Apparently capybaras spend much of their time in the water so they have been treated as water creatures (like whales and seals) rather than as their land dwelling cousins.

We moderns classify animals as mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, mollusks, etc. Or we might more simply divide them into warm blooded or cold blooded. But that is not how earlier peoples saw things. The Church often uses ancient classifications when she decides what is carne and what is not. And in the case of animals once unknown to Europeans the Western Church has frequently adopted local native classifications for animals.

By the way, if we used whether or not an animal was warm blooded or cold blooded as a test of what was allowable on days of abstinence we would not be able to eat some of the species of sharks, even though everyone considers them to be fish.

 

[SMHW]

Not quite true as some things the church made people do centuries ago def didn’t come from god! As we all know, some popes of years gone by were evil in the extreme so can we say that what they ‘ruled’ in those days came from god? I don’t think so.

Examples of sinful rules and regulations imposed by the Church, please?

 

[ajecphotos]

Examples of sinful rules and regulations imposed by the Church, please?

Check out what was established by some of the bad popes of years gone by and then see if those came from god. As we all know there were some really bad popes / clergy and things implemented by them didn’t come from god. People believed in them and like today thought that what they implemented came from god. We all know that is not the case. One example is burning Protestants at the stake. Did that come from god? Etc etc.

 

[SMHW]

Check out what was established by some of the bad popes of years gone by and then see if those came from god. As we all know there were some really bad popes / clergy and things implemented by them didn’t come from god. People believed in them and like today thought that what they implemented came from god. We all know that is not the case. One example is burning Protestants at the stake. Did that come from god? Etc etc.

I believe that executions were performed by the state, not the Church. Perhaps they were endorsed by specific members of the clergy but they weren’t promulgated by “The Church”. Sorry, not a convincing example. And not particularly relevant to a discussion of abstinence from certain foods.

Fasting and abstinence (as well as such things as marriage laws and Mass attendance) are rules that the Church makes binding on members of the Church for the good of the Church. Jesus clearly gave his apostles/Church the power to bind and loose such things. And the Church generally makes accommodations for those persons for whom the Church-made rules constitute an unreasonable burden.

I suggest we stick to the original topic. If you wish to discuss problematic times in Church history it would be better to start a separate thread, possibly in a different folder.

 

[Vico]

Yes.

Could be just me today, but isn’t that contradictory? Shellfish was not considered all that desirable, yet it’s proscribed?

In any case, I don’t think there was ever a proscription against shellfish, mollusks, cepalopods, etc. Only “fin fish” (i.e, with a backbone) among the Byzantines. In the Eastern Mediterranean, (and obviously this doesn’t apply to Slav Byzantines), the sea was an important source of food, and shellfish, octopi, etc, were basically considered “junk” and not fit for other than the poor. If one includes shellfish on the list of proscribed foods, people, mainly the poor, who depended on the sea for their food would have had little or nothing at all to eat.

I should add here that, while the traditional rules are generally similar, olive oil was not proscribed in the Syriac Churches.

GOA has this:

Theodore Balsamon, a 12th century commentator on the canons of the church, says, “even the eating of shell fish on Wednesday and Friday and during Lent is prohibited”.

goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8125

 

[Jean_Anthony]

OP’s question has been answered.