SPLIT: Hour fast before communion at retreats?

[japhy]

But they probably did so out of forgetfulness or ignorance of Catholic teaching that we are to fast and hour before receiving.

And yet, “a Catholic should know that he/she is to fast 1 hour before receiving Holy Communion.”

To suggest that they did it with an agenda is an overreach in judgment.

Overlooking a simple one-hour fast before Communion because “people are in different places” sounds suspicious to me.

Jahi:

Because I questioned the Catholic leadership about eating donuts and coffee as we were preparing to enter Mass, I was told “People are in different places, just try to have joy and don’t judge.” Then later a leader hugged me and whispered in my ear, “Open your heart and your mind.”

 

[LilyM]

fasting for an hour is easy for a person in good health.

True. Same, for that matter, applies to fasting for three hours. I can easily not eat for three hours and not even notice.

For that matter, assuming one isn’t going to Mass terribly late of a morning, fasting from midnight isn’t a big deal either - for someone in good health. For me it would at most make my breakfast an hour or two later than usual.

The point IS clearly something other than PHYSICAL mortification.

 

[Jahi]

Whatever you may think of it, we ARE permitted to eat up to an hour before COMMUNION, and it’s not for you to judge the piety or usefulness of practices that the Church permits.

Most Sunday Masses are at least 45 minutes, most are somewhat longer. So eating up to 15 minutes before Mass starts is perfectly acceptable, as is eating right up until the time Mass starts if it goes longer than an hour. Unless Mass was shorter than 45 minutes, or an hour in the case of those eating just before it started, you had absolutely no business being ‘appalled’ at anyone for adhering to the permitted fast and not going beyond it. For all you know their piety and mortifications and sacrifices may exceed yours in countless other ways, after all.

Fasting longer is entirely optional. I tend at the very least to stop eating an hour before Mass starts, simply because it’s not always possible to time to the minute when one will be receiving Communion, and so it’s easier to eliminate the guesswork altogether. But I wouldn’t dream of criticising anyone who was sticking to the fast required by Canon Law, even if they didn’t show any desire to go beyond.

I’d have to disagree. First, we shouldn’t call it a fast, we should just call it going to Mass. Eating up until you walk into Mass is a gamble. If Mass is 45 minutes long, you’ve violated Canon Law. If Mass is an hour long, you’re receiving communion around 45 minutes into it which means you may or may not be violating Canon Law.

Why risk it? Easy, for the same reason Catholics still use birth control and vote for pro-choice candidates: they’re more concerned with themselves than the God they say they believe in.

I have every right to be appalled. I’ll refer you to Jesus and his tirade in the temple because he is jealous for his father’s house.

 

[Jahi]

But they probably did so out of forgetfulness or ignorance of Catholic teaching that we are to fast and hour before receiving.

To suggest that they did it with an agenda is an overreach in judgment.

Jim

I’m not judging these people’s motives but their lack of motivation to care.

As for judgment, we’re supposed to judge other Christians, otherwise, how can anyone correct immorality or bad doctrine? St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 5: 12-13: “Do you not judge those who are within the Church? But those who are outside, God judges.” Paul was specifically addressing the responsibility of Christians to correct so-called Christians among us who are in sin.

Most importantly, why are the believers who are offended inconsequential? In Romans 14: 1-13 and I Corin. 8: 9-13 St. Paul specifically addresses causing a “weaker brother” to stumble. So if someone has a liberty that makes another stumble, it is sin to continue to do it.

Since you think the faith of those who are concerned with honoring the Lord and obeying Canon Law through fasting before Mass is so weak, count it an act of charity to fast longer and not give occasion to people like me to stumble. How about that.

 

[laszlo]

I was appealed by the burst out: ‘I was treated like a leper’.

The truth is always between opposing viewpoints.

The first Eucharist and for centuries afterward the Body and Blood of Christ was served during a meal, without any sacramental fast, but with full reverence toward the mystery.

Later on, to increase the shadow of the mystery, the fast from midnight was introduced, and the result was one communion a year (at Easter time) for most people.

Beginning St Pius X this process was reversed, and we get to the point that ‘sinners and saints’ gather at the table of the Lord, and many times the reverence is lost.

We cannot comprehend the full truth or live the full ghood, we are week fallible human beings.

The tragic is the lack of the tolerance, and see someone as leper, who try to represent the other side. This is not from God.

 

[japhy]

For that matter, assuming one isn’t going to Mass terribly late of a morning, fasting from midnight isn’t a big deal either - for someone in good health. For me it would at most make my breakfast an hour or two later than usual.

The fast from midnight would be, for most people, from before midnight.

The point IS clearly something other than PHYSICAL mortification.

I still think physical mortification is part of it.

 

[LilyM]

The fast from midnight would be, for most people, from before midnight.

Thank you for stating the completely bleeding obvious. It makes not one bit of difference to my point, since most people don’t eat late at night regardless of how late their breakfast might be.

I still think physical mortification is part of it.

When the vast majority people (presumably including yourself) actually wouldn’t be physically mortified even by a before midnight fast?

I know numerous people who simply don’t eat breakfast at all - pretty much ever. Such people would be doing absolutely nothing different from normal. How is that physical mortification then?

Would you insist that these people then fast for 24 hours since you apparently feel that a person must experience physical mortification?

 

[japhy]

Thank you for stating the completely bleeding obvious. It makes not one bit of difference to my point, since most people don’t eat late at night regardless of how late their breakfast might be.

I had mentioned it because I also meant to say that a person receiving Communion at, say, 9 AM, would have been fasting for possibly 12 hours at that point. I ended up not mentioning that part. My bad.

When the vast majority people (presumably including yourself) actually wouldn’t be physically mortified even by a before midnight fast?

I’m not a scientist, but I would think people get hungry in the morning. And I think it would be a question of mortification to delay eating breakfast until after Mass. I sometimes get stomach rumblings at morning Mass, having fasted since late the prior evening.

I know numerous people who simply don’t eat breakfast at all - pretty much ever. Such people would be doing absolutely nothing different from normal. How is that physical mortification then?

This isn’t Harrison Bergeron. We’re not seeking to find some common length of fasting by which all people everywhere will feel equally hungry at the time they receive Communion.

Would you insist that these people then fast for 24 hours since you apparently feel that a person must experience physical mortification?

Certainly not. If a person fasts for a reasonable time (and I think 3 hours is far more reasonable than 1) and yet does not feel particularly hungry, that’s not a problem. That person might decide to fast longer, then, so that the Eucharistic fast is really a fast for them, and not just “business as usual”.

If I’m not convincing you (as seems to be the case), I hope I’m not offending you. I just see the 1-hour fast as being easy enough to ignore or forget and yet fulfill, and that doesn’t seem spiritually beneficial to me. A longer fast is more deliberate, for most people at least. The sensation of hunger seems too powerful to pass up in both a bodily and spiritual sense.

One last note. In my scouring of the Church Fathers, I’ve found one reference which might be relevant, but I might be stretching it. St. John Chrysostom’s homily XLIX on Matthew 14, he mentions that in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (which prefigures the Eucharist), Jesus “suffer[ed] the multitudes first to have a sense of hunger.” Probably nothing, just something I came across.