When Communion Fast Was Lengthy . . . Older Catholics Especially Please Share

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Little_One0307 said:
I am a convert to the faith, but the longer I have been in the faith the more I am gravitating to the traditions of the Church. I kept the hour fast at first, and then moved to the three hour fast. I figured out that it was only a step to do the fasting from Midnight to the next Mass. I go to Daily Mass so it’s pretty much okay. The days that are hard is when I don’t go to Mass until the evening.

I am kinda of sorry that the older traditions of the Church were changed, I understand why they changed though. Does anyone else practice the traditional fasting from midnight anymore?

God bless.
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You should understand that evening Masses were not always allowed and when they were allowed in 1953, the fast was reduced to 3 hours.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
Were people dispensed from the lengthy communion fast for health reasons, like diabetes?
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yes always
I recall that my mother and other pregnant and nursing mothers were not bound by the Eucharistic and lenten fasts, although many followed it to a degree by choice.

also recall that there were no evening Masses, even Vigil Masses were usually on the morning of the day before the feast, and morning Mass was usually early, like 6, with possibly a later Mass at 7 or 8 for the school children. And not everyone received communion at every Mass because their was not the widespread disregard of confession that is commonplace now. Even on Sunday the latest Mass was over by noon, and even today many people don’t eat until lunch time so it was not that big a deal.
 
TrueLight said:
Oh that’s the correlation!
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Yes.

Before 1953, Mass had to be celebrated before noon. In 1953, in *CHRISTUS DOMINUS Concerning The Discipline To Be Observed With Respect To The Eucharistic Fast, *Pope Pius XII gave permission for ‘Evening Masses’ (not to be celebrated before 4 p.m.) on certain days and changed the rules for the fast.
 
Phemie said:
You should understand that evening Masses were not always allowed and when they were allowed in 1953, the fast was reduced to 3 hours.
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I do understand. Necessity sometimes makes me have to attend evening Masses, but this is rarely done in my life, as Mass thanks be to God, is one of the first things I start off every morning with.
 
The fast was something that one did ! We knew no other method.It was no real sacrifice in our minds.
The shortening of the hours of fast to three were never a consideration for us.Those that were ill could utilize the “new directives”. The rest of us maintained the midnight fast.
The later morning mass was the hard one. We avoided sleeping late.
If one ate , breaking the fast, Holy Communion was “out of the question”
The Real Presence was adored! We were taught that reverance was to be maintained at all times. Hell-Fire and sin were the subject of the Homily. You faced the consequences of sin.You were in Awe of God.
Today the homilies are designed to leave one “feeling good” as they depart the Church.
Perhaps that explains the extraordinary number of those receiving Holy Communion at mass and the miniscule number of those attending the parish scheduled times of Confession.
The one constant and central theme of our church is the Eucharist.Unless a much greater effort is made on the return to established values that were set aside a few years ago I fear the dire results that will ensue !
Make this the center of your life by attending a hour of Adoration weekly, confess your sins every two weeks, in Reperation for those that do not confess.
A few small steps and we will reap untold Graces.
 
The replies to this thread have been very interesting to read and satisfied my curiosity. I know my dad told me he fainted as an altar boy but that may have been the western KS summer heat as much as the fasting.

I think fasting is sometimes not as difficult to accomplish as is eating then fasting, in the sense that when the blood sugar hasn’t been raised, it won’t crash either.

Don’t know if I had ever heard of Mass having to be by noon but it fits with what I vaguely remember in my earliest years, and I know there were 6:00-a.m. or thereabouts Masses more some years ago than there are now. There are still some but not as many.

We have gotten spoiled in several ways - my “pet peeve” is the moving/non-obligating of holydays…:rolleyes:
 
3DOCTORS said:
Back in the day when the Communion fast was much longer than my Boomer/almost Gen-X memory can stretch - I’m just curious what that time was like since I never directly experienced it.
  • Did you keep the long fast?
  • Did you find it difficult?
  • Did your Catholic friends and family keep it too?
  • Did you or anyone you knew sometimes go ahead and eat then not receive Communion very often?
  • Or did some cheat and receive anyway? (Not that they should’ve, but did they.)
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Yes, I kept the long fast
Sometimes, not always
Yes, everyone I knew did
Sometimes. I know I did on occasion. But I would not receive if I had broken the fast.
I am sure some did, but probably not many. If not properly disposed or in a state of grace we were told to make a spiritual communion. I know that is probably hard for a lot of people to believe that these days, but we actually believed in things like that and took them seriously. Very seriously as a matter of fact.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Back in the day when the Communion fast was much longer than my Boomer/almost Gen-X memory can stretch - I’m just curious what that time was like since I never directly experienced it.
  • Did you keep the long fast?
  • Did you find it difficult?
  • Did your Catholic friends and family keep it too?
  • Did you or anyone you knew sometimes go ahead and eat then not receive Communion very often?
  • Or did some cheat and receive anyway? (Not that they should’ve, but did they.)
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Yes…No, yes,yes and I would not know (no-one would have let on…it would have been too shocking-definitely one for the Confessional)

You must remember that the Mass was not offered at the widely varied times as is the norm today. Mass was in my remembering never after midday. So you would have fasted from the time you went to bed until after Mass. We always had a good dinner the evening before.

Junk food was not an issue and of course there was not the money for it anyway.

People who had health issues would have been exempted.

I remember also having a huge and hearty breakfast once we got home!!!🙂 Because it was Sunday there was always a BIG lunch of roast and all the trimmings AND pudding. Then once the washing up was done the kids would go out side and play and mum and dad would have a nap or doze out on the veranda.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Back in the day when the Communion fast was much longer than my Boomer/almost Gen-X memory can stretch - I’m just curious what that time was like since I never directly experienced it.
  • Did you keep the long fast?
  • Did you find it difficult?
  • Did your Catholic friends and family keep it too?
  • Did you or anyone you knew sometimes go ahead and eat then not receive Communion very often?
  • Or did some cheat and receive anyway? (Not that they should’ve, but did they.)
Click to expand...
Whether the fast was from the previous midnight or three hours prior to Mass, it never had much of an effect since we always went to a fairly early Mass like the 8am or 9am … 10 AM at the very latest. Back then, no Mass was allowed after noon so there was no problem trying to fast for an afternoon Mass from the previous midnight.

Everyone kept the fast and most regularly received Communion. We considered it a grave sin to break the fast so if one ate, even by mistake, they merely said a Spiritual Communion. We would no sooner cheat than receive Communion in the state of mortal sin.

On school days, our Mom’s packed us a breakfast (usually of buttered toast) that we would bring to school. Since we had a Missa Cantata every morning while in Elementary School, the nuns gave us 20 minutes after Mass in the classroom to eat our breakfasts.

I still follow the fast from the previous midnight and I usually attend a 7:30AM Mass but sometimes wait for the 10AM Missa Cantata. I do not find it particularly hard to fast even for the 10AM Mass although I may indulge in an early cup of coffee.
 
lagin said:
I grew up in the Church during that time and remember the lengthy fast very well. We did it. It was the rule. We didn’t question it. Most of the time it wasn’t a problem. If we didn’t go to Mass until noon, it seemed more of a sacrifice.

I also remember, that our parish had a Sunday evening Mass. That would have been hard, but people evidently managed.
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As far as I remember, no parishes had Sunday evening Mass until the fast was reduced to three hours before Communion. Before that, when the fast was from midnight, most parishes had their last Mass at 12 noon. There was one church in Dublin, Ireland, that had a 1:00 pm Mass - referred to as the drunks Mass (I went to it a couple of times, when my work as an Air hostess made it very difficult to get to any other, and it surely looked like most people there were still asleep!! Some may have been drunks, others, like me, having worked all night). That was the absolute last chance for Sunday Mass in Ireland!
 
We would fast from midnight and make the 6:00 AM Mass. The smell of bacon and coffee on Sunday as a young kid was amazing. Those are very good memories. It did not seem like a big deal to anyone, it was our life as a Catholic.
 
It was a normal way of life in the 50s and early 60s - we usually went to 9:00 Mass on Sunday morning, and breakfast afterward. Even if we went to the later Masses - we didn’t think it would be ok to cheat. I didn’t know anyone who did - it was part of being catholic. Don’t remember if we could have water or not. At 10:00 was what we called “High Mass” - which was much longer than the others - I remember girls fainting sometimes during that Mass. I still fast from food from Saturday night until Mass on Sunday - just seems right to me.

Back then, not everyone went to Holy Communion every Sunday - mainly because we didn’t always make it to confession on Saturday - lines were usually long, and if you didn’t get there early you could stand in line for an hour or two, even with 4 or 5 priests in those confessionals in our parish church in Germany starting about 2 or 3 PM until … Kind of the inverse of today - hardly any lines for confession, but long ones for Communion.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Back in the day when the Communion fast was much longer than my Boomer/almost Gen-X memory can stretch - I’m just curious what that time was like since I never directly experienced it.
  • Did you keep the long fast?
  • Did you find it difficult?
  • Did your Catholic friends and family keep it too?
  • Did you or anyone you knew sometimes go ahead and eat then not receive Communion very often?
  • Or did some cheat and receive anyway? (Not that they should’ve, but did they.)
Click to expand...
I grew up with the Communion fast. In grade school we had Mass before school, and afterwords we could eat breakfast if we bought it from home, and milk from the government—only .02!

I don’t remember it being too difficult though my mother worked nights and sometimes found that difficult to fast, but she did and so did my whole family.

I don’t ever remember anyone “cheating” either–of course I went to parochial school and religion was drummed into us by the nuns. We would have been scared of going to hell I think if we had done that!

I’m sure glad of the short fast now though. Many people have medical conditions like diabetes (I’m not sure but I think that then they could get a dispensation but they weren’t easy to come by). What was much harder was the Lenten fast and Ember Days for the adults where they had to fast.
 
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