Lent Fasting Regulations?

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UncleBill

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Does anyone have any idea why in the Eastern Catholic Churches the bishops have reduced the fasting to a bare minimum? Why don’t they just publish the traditional guidelines and leave it at that? Do they really think that the bare minimum that they prescribe are helping the people to become better Christians? I don’t get it. 😦

From what I was able to find online it is only the Romanian Catholic Church that prescribes the traditional Lenten fast.
 
I do: how about post-conciliar neo-latinization as an explanation? :hmmm:
 
UncleBill said:
Does anyone have any idea why in the Eastern Catholic Churches the bishops have reduced the fasting to a bare minimum? Why don’t they just publish the traditional guidelines and leave it at that? Do they really think that the bare minimum that they prescribe are helping the people to become better Christians? I don’t get it. 😦

From what I was able to find online it is only the Romanian Catholic Church that prescribes the traditional Lenten fast.
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It allows the faithful to not be obligated for more than the bare minimum. To observe the four penitential seasons of the year is always taught and is lived in a variety of ways through fasting, abstinence, prayers, alms-giving, charitable works, etc. However we do not want to act outwardly to impress others with our piety for social status, as was warned against in the Gospels. For example the week following the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is free from fast and abstinence per the Byzantine USA liturgical calendar. Also in the Great Fast, the abstinence from midnight before the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is a preparation for the Holy Mystery of Communion. Similarly, from midnight on days when the Divine Liturgy occurs.

Sometimes we show our witness of the Christian faith in united actions, and also we prepare ourselves for the Feast.
 
Eastern Catholics only fast from midnight during Great Lent? That’s interesting. Is that the same as the EO? In the Coptic Church, we fast from midnight or 9 hours, whichever is longer, and as far as I know that does not change throughout the year (except during the Holy Fifties, of course, when there is no fasting – not even Wednesday/Friday).
 
Vico said:
It allows the faithful to not be obligated for more than the bare minimum. To observe the four penitential seasons of the year is always taught and is lived in a variety of ways through fasting, abstinence, prayers, alms-giving, charitable works, etc. However we do not want to act outwardly to impress others with our piety for social status, as was warned against in the Gospels. For example the week following the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is free from fast and abstinence per the Byzantine USA liturgical calendar. Also in the Great Fast, the abstinence from midnight before the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is a preparation for the Holy Mystery of Communion. Similarly, from midnight on days when the Divine Liturgy occurs.

Sometimes we show our witness of the Christian faith in united actions, and also we prepare ourselves for the Feast.
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Interesting! Not something we hear in the parishes though…at least not in the 6 or so I regularly attend…Do hear alot about the bare minimum though…Clean Monday and Good Friday. :confused:

Why not at least tell the people what the tradition is and let them make their own mind up?
Rather we are given the bare minimum and when you mention the tradition I’ve been told “that isn’t our way”! :eek:
 
UncleBill said:
Interesting! Not something we hear in the parishes though…at least not in the 6 or so I regularly attend…Do hear alot about the bare minimum though…Clean Monday and Good Friday. :confused:

Why not at least tell the people what the tradition is and let them make their own mind up?
Rather we are given the bare minimum and when you mention the tradition I’ve been told “that isn’t our way”! :eek:
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The people do make their own minds up. The way it is worded is “All the faithful who receive the Eucharist are bound to abstain”. The bishops do send letters at the start of the Great Fast and it is read in the Homily mentioning the penitential practices. Our pastor has given us instructions in the Homily on both the minimum and tradition, and that the Latins there follow the rules of the Latin Church.
 
Well I read something from the Syriac Orthodox Church and * the Patriarch who only set the guidelines as fasting on the first and last week of Great Lent, and no particular prescription of foods. It seems be it Catholic or Orthodox people erroneously feel (1) fasting is an outdated practice and (2) have “no time” for that.*
 
MorEphrem said:
Well I read something from the Syriac Orthodox Church and * the Patriarch who only set the guidelines as fasting on the first and last week of Great Lent, and no particular prescription of foods.*

What you read was probably the Patriarchal letter from 2010 that deals with fasting, which reads in part:
The Holy Church does not prescribe the types of food to eat and ones to avoid on a particular day. The aim of fasting is submission of the faithful to God’s will through piety and the exercise of virtues, especially that of obedience to the commandments of God spoken through the tongues of the bishops who have been given authority to legislate laws and to bind and loose. They make rules for the benefit of the faithful and for the glory of His Holy Name. Since the church is a loving and caring mother and good teacher, she does not put heavy burdens on the faithful which they cannot life, according to the Lord’s words: “You experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them” (Luke 11: 46). Consequently, the Late Lamented Patriarch Elias III (1932) allowed the eating of fish during the Great Lent. In addition, he allowed
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I get his question a lot. I’m old and very much remember strict eastern rite rules …at least back then…
As for fasting and abstinence. Rules were about to be changed. Fasting from meat on Fridays might have bee a sacrifice for some people but not at all for those poor peasants who never had meat at all. My mom told me once that her mother threw out a few left over pierogi ex to the pigs because she fried them with bacon grease and we are fasting. My mom had boiled dough with raw onions that day.

The offering of fasting only works when you give up something you have…not giving up what you don’t have…

When rules were changed that during the year was voluntary but lent and advent was obligatory, then most of the people I knew from the old country would give up something else if they didn’t have meat (maybe eggs, etc), but contined throughout the year. To this day my family and I (even in USA) give up meat as an obligation on Fridays, as voluntary on Wednesday’s.

Strict abstainance of meat AND dairy always on Clean Monday and Good Friday.
 
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