Meat on St. Patrick's Day (Friday?)

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CB_Catholic said:
That is a question one should ask oneself and not others. The point is recognizing that the Bishop is the authority in his Diocese and that must be respected whether one likes the dispensation or not. He doesn’t have to answer to anyone for it. The decision on whether to eat meat or not if dispensed is personal. If one wants to eat meat if dispensed, fine. No one should question the decision or try to influence the decision in others.
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Exactly. I was thinking this myself. 🙂

Sometimes I generally think that our own personal focus should be on our own spiritual lives and what we are doing for ourselves, and should not be on what others are doing.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Apparently the value of honoring an ethnicity and ethnic tradition which has shaped the Catholic Church in America is not important to you. So be it, but I don’t think some kind of “spiritual benefit test” needs to be applied before someone, in clear conscience, can consume meat that day in the wake of their bishop’s dispensation.
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I think mutton is on the menu tonight because St. John ogilvie is honored today. The Scott’s loved thier mutton!
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
What is the spiritual benifit of eating meat on st Patrick’s day this year?
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What’s the spiritual benefit of eating meat any other day of the year? A dispensation for a quasi-holy-day is a dispensation and you can do with it what you will.

I don’t personally get the fuss; St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t really celebrated with a meal where I am from (i.e. Ireland :D). But since it is a holy day in Ireland we’d be dispensed anyway. Though I don’t think the Irish bishops insist we abstain from meat during lent anyway; not sure.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Apparently the value of honoring an ethnicity and ethnic tradition which has shaped the Catholic Church in America is not important to you. So be it, but I don’t think some kind of “spiritual benefit test” needs to be applied before someone, in clear conscience, can consume meat that day in the wake of their bishop’s dispensation.
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But that’s not what happens on st Patrick’s day. People drink green beer and eat boiled meat. I’ve never ever seen a real “spiritual” observance if it at all. Even amoung the Irish in our locales.

Someone please tie the spiritual idea of meat on Friday to St Patrick in a way that overrides the observance of the Sacrifice of Jesus during lent!?
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Apparently the value of honoring an ethnicity and ethnic tradition which has shaped the Catholic Church in America is not important to you. So be it, but I don’t think some kind of “spiritual benefit test” needs to be applied before someone, in clear conscience, can consume meat that day in the wake of their bishop’s dispensation.
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My heritage is predominantly Irish on my Dad’s side of the family. 🙂

I celebrate my Irish heritage on that day.

St. Patrick’s Day is the one day out of the year where I indulge in eating the Irish-American meal of corned beef and cabbage.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
So if I’m correct. All fridays in lent have a saint who’s feast day falls on a Friday.
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That’s probably true. And if someone belongs to a parish or diocese for whom that saint is a patron saint and that Friday is considered a local solemnity, then they would generally have a dispensation from the requirement to abstain from meat. Not just anyone gets to eat meat on that day; just those for whom the day is a solemnity.

I would point out that in some instances local solemnities are not be observed on the actual feast day of the saint. They might be observed on the day the parish church was dedicated or on some other day. It’s always best to check.

St. Patrick is unique in that many people see him as a patron even if they do not belong to a parish or diocese which officially recognizes his feast day as a local solemnity. Many of the bishops have Irish roots or where taught/mentored by those with Irish roots so they think St. Patrick’s Day deserves to be celebrated as a solemnity.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I wonder what st Patrick would advise?
My guess is that corned beef and cabbbage would not trump the memorial if God dying for you. I think the good Saint would agree.
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I don’t know about what St. Patrick would say, but St. Francis of Assisi advocated eating meat on Friday (back when all Fridays were days of abstinence) if that Friday happened to be Christmas:
“Francis observed the birthday of the child Jesus with inexpressible eagerness over all other feasts, saying, ‘It is the feast of feasts, on which God, having become a tiny infant, clung to human breasts.’ When the question rose about eating meat that day, since Christmas was a Friday, he [Francis] replied to Brother Morico, ‘You sin, brother, calling the day on which the child is born to us a day of fast. It is my wish that even the walls should eat meat on such a day; and if they cannot, they should be smeared with meat on the outside.’” (From: franciscanmedia.org/st-francis-and-the-incarnation/)
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Not exactly the same, but sort of interesting, IMO.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I wonder what st Patrick would advise?
My guess is that corned beef and cabbbage would not trump the memorial if God dying for you. I think the good Saint would agree.
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Of course, not eating meat is not the only kind of penance that we can do. So if I eat meat next Friday, it is not like I will be getting away with something. I will just be substituting one penance for another. While not eating meat can be a penance, it is neither the highest form of penance nor the only form of penance. It is just the penance that is normally given during lent.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
wdtprs.com/blog/2017/02/ask-father-st-patricks-day-2017-on-friday-in-lent/
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I don’t disagree that for many people, St Patrick’s Day is celebrated exclusively as a day of ethnic pride or (for those people who don’t have at least some Irish ancestry) an excuse to party.

But I wonder how many of those people care about Lenten observances. I don’t think a day of celebration is going to harm the people who otherwise abstain from eating meat.

I think most of these dispensations include an admonition to observe some other form of penance if meat will be consumed.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I think mutton is on the menu tonight because St. John ogilvie is honored today. The Scott’s loved thier mutton!
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If your bishop gave you a dispensation to celebrate St. John Ogilvie with a mutton feast, enjoy. Otherwise, this is an invalid argument.
 
In the dioceses of Canada, an act of piety can be substituted for meat abstinence even during the Fridays of Lent (though of course not on Good Friday itself). Whether I abstain this coming Friday or not will depend on what everyone decides they want to eat for dinner…we will be hosting my non-Catholic parents. For that matter, my wife isn’t Catholic either… so I’m just one vote among many. Today I had meat at lunch because it was a work function and meat was served. So in lieu, I spent some time tonight praying the psalms and singing Lenten hymns.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Someone please tie the spiritual idea of meat on Friday to St Patrick in a way that overrides the observance of the Sacrifice of Jesus during lent!?
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The two are not mutual exclusive just because celebration and sorrow are mutual exclusive at a time. Lent has other days, and even Friday is twenty-four hours long.

FYI - Galveston-Houston is dispensed.

archgh.org/blog/main.asp?Tid=1898&id=461&cat=Archdiocesan

My plan is to go to stations on my own, and perform some act of penance or charity on Thursday. Then, of course, celebrate in moderation, as we should always do.

I think I will do some sort of Irish-ish melody for Mass that weekend; Be Thou My Vision or something like that.
 
pnewton said:
The two are not mutual exclusive just because celebration and sorrow are mutual exclusive at a time. Lent has other days, and even Friday is twenty-four hours long.

FYI - Galveston-Houston is dispensed. .
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There are plenty of ways to do penance. I don’t think anyone can argue that not eating meat is the highest form of penance. In fact, for me eating corned beef is a form of penance. If my wife cooks it, I will eat it. Personally I would rather go to a fish fry.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
There are plenty of ways to do penance. I don’t think anyone can argue that not eating meat is the highest form of penance. In fact, for me eating corned beef is a form of penance. If my wife cooks it, I will eat it. Personally I would rather go to a fish fry.
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I was thinking the same thing. I mean, corn beef and cabbage? It is not like indulging in lobster (legal on Lenten Fridays,) or blackened sea bass Alexander (legal on Lenten Fridays.) This illustrates the kind of rigidity that the Pope has been speaking against. As Jesus would say, we ought to do one without neglecting the other. Stay within the Church’s rules, but more importantly, within the spirit of the rules that that the Church gives. So, if the diocese permits a celebration for this day, then treat it as a Sunday in Lent, in which you can celebrate, but then add something back in.

Everyone must do what they think best, but if no one has any idea, read the book of James this week, or Romans, or one of the Gospels, etc., as an act of penance in substitute for Friday. And then, still remember the need for moderation.
 
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