What is this all about?

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jesusmademe

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Not eating meat on Friday just feels stupid.
And it is super easy to eat fish which is way more tasty than any entrecote.
And vegetarian food taste much better than an entrecote anyway.
So I guess not having to eat an entrecote or something simmilar is just a blessing. That is not what abstinece is all about. Since cheese often include cow stomach then cheese must be avoided.
Who invented this weird tradition?
They can’t have understood what abstinence is all about.
 
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I can’t understand why someone would come to a message board dedicated to people’s beliefs, just to tell them they’re stupid… what is that all about? :roll_eyes:
 
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Read Leviticus and find even more food restrictions in the Bible. You just have to overcome the material world somehow to get closer to God.
Fasting is the easier way of un-willingness - giving up your will, and the will of your body, to a higher power. How else are you to achieve this without giving up food your body needs, your mind tells you is tasty?
P.S. Fish may be tasty but these days is polluted so don’t splurge on it either.
 
The Church has forbidden the use of meat because Christ sacrificed His flesh for us; also because meat is an article of food easily dispensed with, and yet what men generally like best. Another reason is to remind us that the lusts of the flesh are to be resisted (Gal. v. 19). -The Catechism Explained
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This is an ancient practice. The Church knows that not everyone likes meat, but still requires us to abstain from it on certain days for the reasons above. You can give up something you like in addition to abstaining from meat if you want.
 
You can eat whatever you want on Friday. Just not meat. So you’re welcome to add a devotion to limit your intake or to ALSO not eat something else. 😉
 
Sorry OP, but your post is just plain disrespecful to the Catholic faith.

If you want to have a discussion about a Catholic practice, calling it “stupid” and “weird” is not the way to begin.
 
All religions and spiritual practices around the world have customs surrounding food and fasting that are designed to detach the soul from material things and focus on the higher things.

I, for one, am not about to call the rest of humanity throughout history “stupid”.
 
RedDuke said:
The Church knows that not everyone likes meat, but still requires us to abstain from it on certain days for the reasons above.
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This is why I do not like certain rules. It is based on the idea that everyone’s situation are the same!
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Sorry OP, but your post is just plain disrespecful to the Catholic faith.
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I am only saying that telling a non-meat eater not to eat meat on a Friday is kinda weird.
Telling a meater not to eat meat is good.
Also, people say that it is easy to find much tasty non-meat foods nowadays so abstaining from meat is not much of a spiritual practice.
 
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If it’s super easy for you to abstain from meat because you don’t eat it anyway, you are free to also abstain from something else which would be an actual penance for you. For example, you could abstain from the Internet, or from eating some vegetarian dish that you enjoy.

The Catholic Church realizes that it cannot perfectly craft some food rule that is going to work for billions and billions of people in different locations with different diets all over the world, and therefore the food rules are set by country and/or diocese to some extent, and furthermore each individual is expected to take some responsibility for their own spiritual life and for fulfilling the goal of doing some small penance. We don’t just blindly follow rules, we think about why they are in place and if in our case it is necessary to do something beyond meeting the bare minimums of the rule, we do it. In the USA, abstinence from meat has been made optional on most Fridays (the exceptions being Fridays in Lent, Good Friday and Ash Wednesday) with the understanding that people who don’t abstain should do some other penance of their own choice instead.

Also your original post contains an error: the Latin Catholic Church doesn’t prohibit cheese on abstinence days.

I would also note that many Eastern Catholics have much more strict fasting and abstinence practices and often they aren’t even allowed to eat fish.
 
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Long story short, Christ sacrificed himself for us on a Friday, so we abstain from flesh on Fridays in His honor and remembrance. It’s a tradition that’s been around since the early days of the Church, iirc. And coming to a Catholic forum and calling Catholic traditions “stupid” shows a lack of class.
jesusmademe said:
And it is super easy to eat fish which is way more tasty than any entrecote.
And vegetarian food taste much better than an entrecote anyway.
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I’d disagree. As much as I love seafood, give me a grilled, rare ribeye anyday.😃
 
If you’re talking about rennet, the Latin Church does not consider that a basis for forbidding cheese.
Cheese is allowed.
 
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Some products cheese has vegetarian rennet. Check the labels it should say “vegetarian rennet” or “microbian rennet”.
For ready to eat dish that contains cheese… well it’s hard to know what’s inside it.
 
Find an excellent series on Tradition. There are quite a few free on youtube. Learn the Tradition of the Catholic Church. It stretches back over 2000 years.
 
jesusmademe said:
And it is super easy to eat fish which is way more tasty than any entrecote.
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“In your opinion”.

I dislike fish, with the possible exception of salmon and cod which I can tolerate and the latter only in batter aka fish and chips.

I also love beef (and chicken, and lamb and pork).

So fish is definitely “penitential” for me. But here in Canada, we can substitute an act of charity or other form of penance on Fridays. Since my wife is not Catholic and is the family cook and gets to decide what we eat, the “other form of penance” is vacuuming and cleaning the bathrooms.
 
My grandpa would say to us “You were never crucified, so stop complain’” if we complained about going to mass, or not being allowed to eat meat on a Friday.
 
jesusmademe said:
My analysis: Catholics abstain from meat not in order to do something hard. Something hard would be not drinking alcohol for an alcoholic.
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I don’t think you’re the expert on what is and isn’t “hard” for me personally to do.

I also don’t have to prove to you or any other human that my penances are or aren’t difficult. I generally don’t like to talk to other people about penances I do because they’re supposed to be done in secret with only the Father seeing. And frankly, what other Catholics do for penance is none of your business.

Your post on this is insensitive, just like your first post was rude.
 
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