Why have we abandoned our fast before mass?

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I was reading on the ask an apologist forum today( this ) about fasting before mass. The question was whether you have to fast 1 hour from the beginning of mass, or 1 hour from the time you recieve the Eucharist. The answer is 1 hour before you recieve Eucharist. Say mass starts at 10:00. The Eucharist is usually distributed probably around 10:40 to 10:50. This means that if you fast for 10 minutes before mass then you have satisfied the fast. What is the point of this fast, to keep people from eating their breakfast in mass? That is about all it accopmlishes. If you want to show up for mass on time, many times you may have to leave home atleast 10 minutes before mass starts. When is fasting done, in the car on the way to mass?

This is one of the reasons why there is no respect for the Eucharist anymore.
 
Before the Church relaxed the rules, less than a third of the faithful present at Sunday mass ordinarily received communion.

The rules were changed to encourage more folks to receive more often, and the rule change was successful from what the stats are today, with the vast majority receiving in the current day.
 
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Kielbasi:
Before the Church relaxed the rules, less than a third of the faithful present at Sunday mass ordinarily received communion.

The rules were changed to encourage more folks to receive more often, and the rule change was successful from what the stats are today, with the vast majority receiving in the current day.
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The vast majority recieve, but the vast majority have not been to confession in years. If they haven’t sinned mortally in years, then I really need to learn a lot from these people. Many of our saints could even learn from them considering that they confessed quite often. Abstaining from the Eucharist is not necessarily a bad thing. That is not a success.

This is not a good reason to relax the fasts. If you want to get more people to recieve the Eucharist, then the best thing is to teach them the importance of confession. Its not even that they relaxed the fast, the completely got rid of it.
 
This is not a good reason to relax the fasts
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That’s not what the bishops and the pope thought.

Maybe we’ll return to the old days when the average devout Catholic received communion only a few times per year.

But maybe not, such a return could easily alienate a lot of the faithful. The people really aren’t into big changes as to the practice of religion.
 
This is not a good reason to relax the fasts
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Kielbasi:
That’s not what the bishops and the pope thought.
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Is this why the rules were relaxed? Was the intention really to encourage more of the faithful to receive the Eucharist? I am not trying to be difficult; I truly do not know. You (Kielbasi) appear to know. Can you provide a resource for this information? Thanks!
 
Encourage more people to recieve communion. Try this “give a decent sermon on the sacrement of reconciliation”.
 
I know I must be missing something but what about fasting has changed? As far as I know you must fast (apart from water or medication) for at least one hour before receiving Communion.
Don’t we all do that or is someone saying we should be doing something other than that?
 
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thistle:
I know I must be missing something but what about fasting has changed? As far as I know you must fast (apart from water or medication) for at least one hour before receiving Communion.
Don’t we all do that or is someone saying we should be doing something other than that?
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Formerly, the fast was from everything from midnight until one received the Eucharist. You must be a kid! 😃
 
Actually, the fast was from Midnight until you recieved and then was relaxed to three hours before Communion and then the one hour before Communion. It was a gradual reduction of the number of hours. I seem to recall the one hour before Communion happend 30 years ago when I was in High School because Sister would tell us what that meant (which was really nice if you were going to daily Mass and then right to school! They did not want us to come to school without breakfast.)

This makes me think that perhaps the one hour fast before Communion was also to encourage more people to come to daily Mass, hmmm, just a thought. Anyone else know more facts?

I don’t think that this was is the only reason for the lack of reverance for Jesus in the Eucharist but also a serious lack of Catechesis - which I see being remedied in my own Parish, our children at least are learning the Truth, but we also have great homilists who are not afraid to preach about the Eucharist, abortion, euthenasia, Confession. We also get the newly ordained Priests as our Associate Pastors for their first year or two for continued tutelage under Monsignor who gives them a great example of what it is to be the Pastor of a parish (which also happens to be the largest in the Arch-diocese).

Brenda V.
 
I have a mortal sin that I struggle with a lot. I went to my confessor who is also my spiritual director and he told me not to worry about receiving unworthily if I slip once or twice because you get great grace from the Eucharist and receiving the Eucharist will help you with your struggle. Obviously he told me to confess this when I can but not to deny myself the graces through the Eucharist.
 
Back when we had to fast from midnight, the custom was to have early Masses. People had breakfast after Mass.
 
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Kielbasi:
That’s not what the bishops and the pope thought.

Maybe we’ll return to the old days when the average devout Catholic received communion only a few times per year.

But maybe not, such a return could easily alienate a lot of the faithful. The people really aren’t into big changes as to the practice of religion.
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That sure beats receiving each week while in a state of mortal sin.

As Catholics we are required to attend the Mass every Sunday and other Holy Days of Obligation. We are required to receive Holy Communion once a year. There’s a reason for this…
 
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A.Pelliccio:
Try this “give a decent sermon on the sacrement of reconciliation”.
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That, and making it a little more available. What kind of message is being sent when, in a parish of thousands upon thousands of people (which may be “twinned” with another parish, sharing the priests) the sacrament of Reconciliation is only available for one hour (or less) on Saturday afternoon?

It’s obvious that with a 60-minute window once a week (and some churches have far less than that – I’ve seen as little as 15 minutes), the vast majority of a large parish could not be accommodated in any given week, even when also allowing people to make appointments (and people who aren’t free Saturday afternoons are really stuck). Even if you add up those hours for the entire year, it is still not enough time for everyone in the parish to avail themselves of the sacrament even once a year (it might be enough if confessions were just a minute or so long, but when I’ve been in line, I’ve noticed that most are quite a bit longer).

So, if all of us are really intended to confess often, the sacrament needs to be made more available than it is right now. I can’t help but notice that on the TLM parish web sites I’ve visited, they all have confession available before every Mass – that, I think, is sending a much better message about the importance of Reconciliation.

(Sorry if I’m off-topic. 🙂 )
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SMHW:
Early and frequently VERY short.
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Definitely early – I remember (as a kid) 6:45 AM High Mass (you didn’t even think about eating; you bathed, dressed, and ran out to the car). It wasn’t short, though; it was pretty long! And when Mass was ended, everybody raced to their cars to rush to be first in line at the bakery (a traffic cop was needed to direct all the traffic out of the parking lot). Breakfast was eaten after we got home.

Crazy Internet Junkies Society**
**Carrier of the Angelic Sparkles Sprinkle Bag
 
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SMHW:
Early and frequently VERY short.
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Well, I don’t recall any of the Sunday Masses being very short, as they were usually High Masses, preceded by the Asperges. Our family would go to Mass early; then return home for a big Sunday breakfast. Of course, Mom insisted we change clothes before breakfast, as we were wearing our church clothes to Mass. Weekday Masses were shorter, but not hurried.
 
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Petertherock:
I have a mortal sin that I struggle with a lot. I went to my confessor who is also my spiritual director and he told me not to worry about receiving unworthily if I slip once or twice because you get great grace from the Eucharist and receiving the Eucharist will help you with your struggle. Obviously he told me to confess this when I can but not to deny myself the graces through the Eucharist.
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When we are in mortal sin we not only receive NO graces from receiving the Eucharist, we commit the sin of sacrilege! You are not denying yourself graces by not receiving the Eucharist when in mortal sin, you are preventing yourself from committing yet another mortal sin!

I think you need another Spiritual Director!
 
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mercygate:
Formerly, the fast was from everything from midnight until one received the Eucharist. You must be a kid! 😃
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Thanks for the compliment. I’m a 57 year old kid!!
I was previously a Methodist and converted to the catholic faith in 1991. As far as I know the one hour fasting rule has been the rule all of my “short” catholic life.
 
Didn’t Karl K have this topic in his email letter recently? and the only way to break the one hour rule was to eat while going to church or at the Mass.

And CarolAnn where was the cop at the bakery or Church. We still have police directing traffic at the end of Mass. Its always heartening that the parking lots could be expanded and the police are needed at Church. You were allowed to go to a bakery on Sunday?
 
hilde the dog:
Didn’t Karl K have this topic in his email letter recently? and the only way to break the one hour rule was to eat while going to church or at the Mass.
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That is my whole point, you would have to bring your eggs to Mass to break the fast. It is pretty much impossible to break it.
 
I just read KK’s e-letter and he said pretty much what I said. Plus he made some other good points. It seems like the Church in America is trying to be accomadating to everyone. They are basically saying, you don’t need to go to Mass, you don’t need to fast.

catholic.com/newsletters/kke_050628.asp
 
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