Lent

[Ilovejesus1234]

No, it’s ok. I’m not upset, it just seems like you’re having to deal with scrupulosity, which basically means that you’re constantly worried that you’re sinning against God and committing mortal sins. That’s something that priests are often trained to help with, but not something that I’m going to be able to help you overcome.

By the ‘Vigil’ I meant the Easter Vigil. I just get lazy when I type sometimes.

I have to go for tonight, but I would seriously talk to your confessor or parish priest about this. They’ll be able to help guide you much better than I can.

Ok but when you get back, can you please answer my question about whether or not you are located in the USA, mainly because I just want to make sure I got my info from a catholic who lives within in the place where the USA bishops rein, just to know I got my info from a reliable source.

Also what would an Easter Vigil be, sorry I am an RCIA student on my way to becoming baptized.

Also is it required of me to go to the stations of the cross, or is it encouraged, like you indicated early.

 

[Stephen_says]

Ok but when you get back, can you please answer my question about whether or not you are located in the USA, mainly because I just want to make sure I got my info from a catholic who lives within in the place where the USA bishops rein, just to know I got my info from a reliable source.

Also what would an Easter Vigil be, sorry I am an RCIA student on my way to becoming baptized.

Also is it required of me to go to the stations of the cross, or is it encouraged, like you indicated early.

You should ask your RCIA instructor what the Easter Vigil is. I’m surprised they haven’t talked about it yet, because it is when many new Catholics are baptized into the church. The Vigil is a mass held on Holy Saturday Night.
There are Vigils before many Holy days, and if you ever go to a Mass on any Saturday evening instead of Sunday, which many parishes offer, that is called a Vigil Mass. The Easter Vigil Mass is the start of Easter.

The stations of the cross is great, but not required.
You MUST fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
You MUST abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent.
Every Sunday, but especially Easter, is a joyful time to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead! It is “the Feast of Feasts”. Be happy and have some pie!

 

[thistle]

Can you rephrase what day I am not required to fast on, it would be the vigil day and easter sunday right?

You are only required to fast two days a year and they are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. You are NOT required to fast on any other days of the year.

 

[Ilovejesus1234]

SO fasting and abstaining is required on ash wednesday and good friday.

And of course abstaining on fridays of lent.

But fasting and abstaining not required on vigil or easter sunday. Correct?

 

[Stephen_says]

Correct

Peace

 

[SeekerOfIron]

Ok but when you get back, can you please answer my question about whether or not you are located in the USA, mainly because I just want to make sure I got my info from a catholic who lives within in the place where the USA bishops rein, just to know I got my info from a reliable source.

Also what would an Easter Vigil be, sorry I am an RCIA student on my way to becoming baptized.

Also is it required of me to go to the stations of the cross, or is it encouraged, like you indicated early.

Yep, I’m in the USA.

 

[His_helpmeet]

A word of advice:

For the sake of your health, if you are planning to keep the Paschal Fast for all of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, please do it in accordance with modern fasting (i.e. two small meals and only one full meal each day). I once decided, of my own volition, to keep the Paschal Fast by eating nothing (apart from receiving Holy Communion at the Good Friday Celebration of the Lord’s Passion) from after supper on Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday morning. It was not a pleasant experience. I did recover from it and I am okay, but it is not something I recommend. (As it turns out, I was also very lucky. I didn’t know it at the time, but I have a minor liver disorder that means I should not go without food for extended periods as I can become jaundiced.)

 

[Magdalen2013]

So overall and I just want to make sure on this, for two of the questions I addressed they are not required, correct?

I don’t have to fast or abstain on Easter Sunday

and for the vigil thing, what is that? and do I need to let my fast/abstainence drag on to that day

The Mass on the Saturday evening before Easter Sunday is known as the Easter “Vigil” Mass. What that directive is trying to tell you is that it is virtuous to continue the Good Friday fast up to the beginning of the Easter Vigil Mass (about 7PM on Saturday in my parish).

A “Vigil” Mass is a Mass on the evening before a Sunday Mass OR a Feast. Our parish has a Vigil Mass every Saturday evening.

 

[Ilovejesus1234]

Assuming you’re a Latin Catholic (and if you don’t know, then I think it’s pretty safe to assume you are), then you are correct, they are not required. Latin Catholics are not required to fast on Holy Saturday, Easter, or any other day besides Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

If you are an Eastern Catholic, I defer to people more knowledgeable than myself.

Why do you say Latin Catholic? I thought I was a Roman Catholic?

 

[Ilovejesus1234]

usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm

Also I wanted to ask, according to this, it says that we are no longer obliged to fast/abstain on Fridays…But does it say something here about replacing it with some other form of self denial or penance ? Would that mean if I didn’t I would be committing a mortal sin?

Usually everyday I have some sort of self denial in what I do, especially in offering up my sufferings for others. But since I have been suffering for others for some time daily, I automatically do it, without even thinking it as self-denial, offering up, or penance. I usually just go through every Friday how I normally do, by suffering the same way I did the day before. Everyday I sorta deny myself but not consciously, I like to think of it as suffering for others, but I rarely using the word self denial.

Anyway I am just informing yall about this because you would be able to understand why I am asking this.

Also I haven’t gotten a chance to fully read the replies and I plan on doing it soon, I gotta hit the hay though, night guys !

 

[Vico]

Why do you say Latin Catholic? I thought I was a Roman Catholic?

There are 24 Catholic churches (23 are eastern), of which the largest is the Latin. When a person is baptized Catholic as an adult (are 14 or later) they have the right to choose one of these for their enrollment, no matter where they live.

1. 
   *] Maronite
   *] Byzantines of Italy (Italo-Albanian)
   *] Chaldean
   *] Ukrainian
   *] Belorussian
   *] Syro-Malabar
   *] Byzantine F.R.O.Y. (Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia)
   *]Macedonian
   *] Albanian
   *] Slovak
   *] Hungarian
   *] Byzantine (Ruthenian)
   *] Romanian
   *] Melkite
   *] Coptic
   *] Armenian
   *] Syrian
   *] Ethiopian
   *] Eritrean
   *] Bulgarian
   *] Russian
   *] Greek
   *] Syro-Malankara
   *]Latin

 

[Stephen_says]

Why do you say Latin Catholic? I thought I was a Roman Catholic?

“Roman Catholic” refers to all the 24 churches listed by the previous poster, because they are all in communion with the Church of Rome.
So the particular branch that you are, most likely, is “Latin Catholic” as opposed to “Armenian Catholic” or anything else, but you are also Roman Catholic, just as an Armenian would be also a Roman Catholic.

Also I wanted to ask, according to this, it says that we are no longer obliged to fast/abstain on Fridays…But does it say something here about replacing it with some other form of self denial or penance ? Would that mean if I didn’t I would be committing a mortal sin?

We are not OBLIGED to do any penance on any Friday in the United States.
We are “strongly encouraged”, but it is not a mortal sin if we fail to do so.
It is not even a venial sin.

Peace

 

[Vico]

I have a question is there any rule stating I must fast or abstain on Easter Sunday, or does this only apply to Ash Wednesday, Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday

Also I found this on the USCCB, what does it mean, and is it required:

“If possible, the fast on Good Friday is continued until the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday night) as the “paschal fast” to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus, and to prepare ourselves to share more fully and to celebrate more readily his Resurrection.”

usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/catholic-information-on-lenten-fast-and-abstinence.cfm

Note the complimentary norm: “… the age of fasting is from the completion of the eighteenth year to the beginning of the sixtieth’ in accord with canon 97.”

Also, note that Friday observance is still done on all Fridays in some form, even though the traditional abstinence from meat is no longer the*** sole form**** of observation***:24. 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.
usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm

 

[Ilovejesus1234]

On the Fridays outside of Lent the U.S. bishops conference obtained the permission of the Holy See for Catholics in the US to substitute a penitential, or even a charitable, practice of their own choosing. Since this was not stated as binding under pain of sin, not to do so on a single occasion would not in itself be sinful. However, since penance is a divine command, the general refusal to do penance is certainly gravely sinful. For most people the easiest way to consistently fulfill this command is the traditional one, to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year which are not liturgical solemnities. When solemnities, such as the Annunciation, Assumption, All Saints etc. fall on a Friday, we neither abstain or fast.

On ewtn it says this, what does it mean, I thought not doing penance was fine on fridays outside of lent.

Source: ewtn.com/faith/lent/fast.htm

 

[Vico]

On the Fridays outside of Lent the U.S. bishops conference obtained the permission of the Holy See for Catholics in the US to substitute a penitential, or even a charitable, practice of their own choosing. Since this was not stated as binding under pain of sin, not to do so on a single occasion would not in itself be sinful. However, since penance is a divine command, the general refusal to do penance is certainly gravely sinful. For most people the easiest way to consistently fulfill this command is the traditional one, to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year which are not liturgical solemnities. When solemnities, such as the Annunciation, Assumption, All Saints etc. fall on a Friday, we neither abstain or fast.

On ewtn it says this, what does it mean, I thought not doing penance was fine on fridays outside of lent.

Source: ewtn.com/faith/lent/fast.htm

The USCCB said that the 1966 norms are still current, with the exception of what was changed with the 1983 canon law on the age for abstinence. If you read the 1966 document on fast and abstinence you read what two means for penance were given there for territories with higher economic well being and those with lower economic well being:In the first place, Holy Mother Church, although it has always observed in a special way abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless wants to indicate in the traditional triad of “prayer—fasting—charity” the fundamental means of complying with the divine precepts of penitence. These means were the same throughout the centuries, but in our time there are special reasons whereby, according to the demands of various localities, it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others.(60) Therefore, where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given in order that the sons of the Church may not be involved in the spirit of the “world,”(61) and at the same time the witness of charity will have to be given to the brethren who suffer poverty and hunger beyond any barrier of nation or continent.(62) On the other hand, in countries where the standard of living is lower, it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians—while they seek in every way to promote better social justice—offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ.
Therefore, the Church, while preserving—where it can be more readily observed—the custom (observed for many centuries with canonical norms) of practicing penitence also through abstinence from meat and fasting, intends to ratify with its prescriptions other forms of penitence as well, provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity.

w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini.html