The Disaster of "Optional" Friday Abstinence

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Jennifer_G said:
Same here. Maybe I’ll say the basic Liturgy of the Hours (Lauds, Vespers and Compline) for Friday penance. I’m just not sure how long they take, though.
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Not that long, really. Give yourself a space of about 15-20 minutes when you’re first starting out - after a while, you’ll have the ones that are said every day memorized, and you won’t have to go looking for them in the book, and then it will take about 10-15 minutes or so. 🙂
 
jmcrae said:
Not that long, really. Give yourself a space of about 15-20 minutes when you’re first starting out - after a while, you’ll have the ones that are said every day memorized, and you won’t have to go looking for them in the book, and then it will take about 10-15 minutes or so. 🙂
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Often, depending on where you purchase yours, they come with little bookmark/cards with the “regular” stuff…👍
 
Paenitentia said:
I wrote an article recently about the disaster of the US Bishops’ decision to remove the Friday abstinence obligation. What is most interesting, and what the articles focuses on, is reading the document that removed the obligation with forty years of hindsight. It is startling how wrong of a decision this was. I’d appreciate any feedback, but I think it is high time we ask our Bishops to correct this pastoral mistake.

clementia-militia.blogspot.com/2008/05/pastoral-disaster-friday-abstinence-and.html

Deo Gratias!
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**You not only misread what the bishops wrote but you took the liberty to misquote and misinterpret their intent. They did NOT make Friday abstinence an option. As is indicated from paragraphs 22 through 26 of the document, the bishops retained the Friday abstinence and said that they hoped the faithful would continue keeping Friday as a time of self-denial and self-mortification. If the faithful wish, however, they may forego the abstinence from meat but they would need to substitute and implement another form of penetential practice in its place. If they wish to continue the meat abstinence, they may do so. That’s a big difference than making Friday abstinence ‘optional’! What they made optional was the form that abstinence was to take. I see nothing wrong with their decision or with the document as a whole.
 
After discovering that Friday penance still exists, I chose over a year ago to give up meat every friday unless in a real bind, I will substitute something else. The way I was taught by my relatives, it was something they did as kids in the 60’s and now we just only do during lent.🤷
 
SimonArizona said:
What is the point of abstaining from meat, but then having a lobster?
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Especially in a maritime city like Baltimore. That’s what our priests said just before Lent - Just because you’re abstaining from meat doesn’t mean you can go to the local restaurant and order a huge juicy lobster or eat crab cakes. 🙂
 
I understand that, for many, giving up meat is no real penance - especially if you choose lobster as a substitute! But for many - I’d say even a majority - of people in the West, at least, where meat is regularly eaten, having to forego meat does involve a conscious decision, even if the substitute meal is pleasant.

As I see it, leaving the choice of penance up to the individual requires a great deal of discipline and maturity - it is human nature to be inconsistent, to chose a penance that would not inconvenience one too much. Example: we normally abstain from meat on a Friday, but sometimes one has a craving for meat, or one is invited to a function and those cocktail snacks look so tasty, etc, and meat is eaten, and then one says, “okay, I must give something else up - well, I haven’t had a glass of wine today and don’t really feel like it, so that’s what I’ll give up”. In South Africa, you can even substitute “other works of piety or charity” - without saying what suffices. So…let’s just say an extra decade of the rosary, a few extra prayers, the duty is done.

The result is that, not being bound to anything in particular, it is very subjective, and also…the whole Catholic IDENTITY has also been diluted. It was something all practising Catholics did - now that is gone, and most people don’t seem to realise they are bound to anything.

God bless
Mitch
 
Abstinence on Fridays was universal penance on Fridays that unified us as Catholics. Taking this away is just one more thing that casts Catholics to being like the rest of the world. There was a day when people could see the difference between Catholics and non-Catholics by the lives they lived, choices they made, people they voted for, entertainment they enjoyed and even by their diet. People did not always understand why we did what we did, but they knew we were different. Now people can’t tell who is Catholic and who is not, because everyone seems the same, and does the same things. It seem in the past forty years Catholics are more and more just like the rest of the world. What a shame.
 
mlchance said:
I wonder how the Church would have turned out if Jesus Christ worked under such an assumption?

– Mark L. Chance.
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Mark, that cheap shot is beneath you.

Christ’s sacrifice was necessary, abstaining from meat only a matter of discipline, and a rather arbitrary one. When and where it began, meat was only for special occasions, and almost never eaten by the poor or working classes even then. It took the Church a few centuries to catch on that this was no longer the case…

It would have been more meaningful if it had been broadened to include chocolate, sweets, alcohol-- everything we associate with special occasions today.

But it would be even more useful to abstain from things that are actually harmful to ourselves and others… snideness, say.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
Mark, that cheap shot is beneath you.

Christ’s sacrifice was necessary, abstaining from meat only a matter of discipline, and a rather arbitrary one. When and where it began, meat was only for special occasions, and almost never eaten by the poor or working classes even then. It took the Church a few centuries to catch on that this was no longer the case…

It would have been more meaningful if it had been broadened to include chocolate, sweets, alcohol-- everything we associate with special occasions today.

But it would be even more useful to abstain from things that are actually harmful to ourselves and others… snideness, say.
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I always thought that it had something to do with remembering that Our Lord was sacrificed on the cross for our sins? Like, meat/flesh and all that? I was never under the impression that giving up meat was an arbitrary one…

John 6:56 “For My Flesh is meat indeed.”
 
BamaRider said:
Because of the Bishop’s decesion several generations of Catholics no longer have a appreciation for Fish Sticks. :mad:
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Lets see we still eat these oldies:

creamed tuna on toast (kids like this one for winter lunch)
rice salmon cheesy casserole (husband hates this one LOL)
fish sticks & mac & cheese
shrimp pasta
seafood lasagna
fish sandwiches
grilled cheese sandwich & tomato soup
 
drforjc said:
Removing the Friday abstinence rule has, regardless of the penance aspect, done enormous damage to Catholic identity. This rule helped people identify with the larger Catholic community. It made them “different,” in a way. Not necessarily “ghettoized,” but different.
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I think the greatest harm was to not then require another specific penance. The practice was a teaching in obedience to something we did not need to understand.

Catholics IMHO have lost the ability to follow the teachings of the church without trying to get out of it.

The teachings on contraceptives and abortion are easier for many to ignore when the community does not have the smaller traditions to follow.
 
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