Why no restrictions on drinking?

[joseie]

Can anybody tell why no restrictions are there for drinking while there restrictions for eating meat on certain days/occasions ?Is it intentional or an omission?

 

[ShrodingersCat]

There are restrictions on drinking - it’s immoral to get drunk at any time of the year. Alcohol in moderation isn’t really any worse than any other food or beverage.

 

[Cruciferi]

https://www.google.com/amp/religion...-i-learned-from-my-46-day-beer-only-fast/amp/

 

[LilyM]

Can anybody tell why no restrictions are there for drinking while there restrictions for eating meat on certain days/occasions ?Is it intentional or an omission?

As has been explained already, of course there are restrictions on drinking alcohol, if that is what is what you mean - drunkenness is always a sin.

If you mean liquids in general (water/juice/tea/coffee etc), one reason would be that it is far worse for your health to restrict your fluid intake, even for a day, than your food intake. The old bod is 70 percent water, after all.

On the contrary, most health experts recommend that people have even a bit more fluids than usual if they’re going to eat less. Keep hydrated, people!

 

[joseie]

Sorry,I meant drinking alcohol only. My doubt was when restrictions are put specially for meat,why not for drinking alcohol also because whatever be the purpose and justification,both are in almost the same footing.

 

[ShrodingersCat]

I don’t really know what you mean by that. One is a food and the other is a drink. Milk is just as calorific as beer and you can drink that when fasting. Beer was a common way of hydrating in places where the water supply was dirty as the fermentation process killed bacteria. Maybe that is part of the reason.

 

[Vico]

Can anybody tell why no restrictions are there for drinking while there restrictions for eating meat on certain days/occasions ?Is it intentional or an omission?

The Black Fast: … In the first place more than one meal was strictly prohibited. At this meal flesh meat, eggs, butter, cheese, and milk were interdicted (Gregory I, Decretals IV, cap. vi; Trullan Synod, Canon 56). Besides these restrictions abstinence from wine, specially during Lent, was enjoined (Thomassin, Traité des jeûnes de l’Église, II, vii). Furthermore, during Holy Week the fare consisted of bread, salt, herbs, and water (Laymann, Theologia Moralis, Tr. VIII; De observatione jejuniorum, i). Finally, this meal was not allowed until sunset.
… owing to ever changing circumstances of time and place, the Church has gradually relaxed the severity of penitential requirements, so that now little more than a vestige of former rigour obtains.

O’Neill, J.D. (1907). The Black Fast. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02590c.htm

 

[joseie]

Ok.thanks for the information… Inshort restrictions were there earlier for wine also but as time passed many have been relaxed and now only some thing symbolically remains.Even the present restrictions may be further diluted as people are becoming reluctant to observe such things…

 

[1ke]

Can anybody tell why no restrictions are there for drinking while there restrictions for eating meat on certain days/occasions ?Is it intentional or an omission?

Yes. It’s intentional that we abstain from meat, specifically.

Christ gave up his flesh for the life of the world. Therefore, we abstain from flesh meats on the day of sacrifice— Friday.

You must understand the symbolism to understand the reason we give up meat.

 

[1ke]

both are in almost the same footing.

Please explain what you mean by this.

 

[Vico]

Ok.thanks for the information… Inshort restrictions were there earlier for wine also but as time passed many have been relaxed and now only some thing symbolically remains.Even the present restrictions may be further diluted as people are becoming reluctant to observe such things…

Saint Pope Paul VI explained in 1966 (Paenitemini, Ch. III) that the ideal observation is to be that of asceticism where economic well-being is greater, and prayer and works of charity where is it lesser:

In the first place, Holy Mother Church, although it has always observed in a special way abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless wants to indicate in the traditional triad of “prayer—fasting—charity” the fundamental means of complying with the divine precepts of penitence. These means were the same throughout the centuries, but in our time there are special reasons whereby, according to the demands of various localities, it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others.(60) Therefore, where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given in order that the sons of the Church may not be involved in the spirit of the “world,”(61) and at the same time the witness of charity will have to be given to the brethren who suffer poverty and hunger beyond any barrier of nation or continent.(62) On the other hand, in countries where the standard of living is lower, it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians—while they seek in every way to promote better social justice—offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ. Therefore, the Church, while preserving—where it can be more readily observed—the custom (observed for many centuries with canonical norms) of practicing penitence also through abstinence from meat and fasting, intends to ratify with its prescriptions other forms of penitence as well, provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-...cuments/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini.html

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

There are times in history and places in the world where the drinking water is not especially safe, so attitudes toward alcohol vary. Perhaps we are being trusted to carry on in a spirit of pennance according to our station in life and place in the world.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Because in the world through much of time, alcoholic drinks were the only liquid safe to consume. We take potable water for granted, however, today there are places where clean drinking water is more precious than gold.

In ancient times, beer or wine were the way people stayed alive!

 

[TheLittleLady]

Meat was and still is a luxury item in many parts of the world. For those who were able to afford meat, a sacrifice - to eat like poor people - was just that.

 

[midori]

I need to read @Cruciferi’s link, but there were monks whose sole diet consisted of beer during periods of fasting— they avoided all solids, period. So basically, nutritionally speaking, their beer was like liquid bread.

 

[twf]

The Eastern Churches still abstain from wine (and I would presume beer) during times of fasting.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

First there all ALWAYS restrictions on drinking. We are not to get drunk. Period. Second, sometimes historically in places where fresh running water was rare. An alchohol was common because it was safe and portable. And potable (that’s my favorite word in the entire English language sorry) the same poison in alchohol that gets one drunk, kills other harmful life (bacteria) but in modern times in think at least for most that alchohol in lent has taken the place of chocolate or sweets for many who give it up for lent. Because you know… we pay for bottled water now…

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Sorry,I meant drinking alcohol only. My doubt was when restrictions are put specially for meat,why not for drinking alcohol also because whatever be the purpose and justification,both are in almost the same footing.

Historically, alcohol was not for getting drunk but was an acceptable and healthy drink in a time when many water supplies were contaminated with sewage and other waste and transmitted terrible diseases. People drank weak beer or wine because it was the safe way to stay hydrated. Restricting this, beyond the obvious restriction that you shouldn’t be getting drunk because drunkenness is always a sin, would have just caused people to become dehydrated and/or become ill from drinking the dirty river water or whatever.

In many modern societies, the US for example, alcohol is not part of many people’s daily diet, while meat is, so it wouldn’t be much of a restriction. I probably drank alcohol all of four times in the past year.

 

[joseie]

Alcohol has basically only one purpose.It is not nutritious.So the purpose is just to get intoxicated and to have a feeling of merry and happiness.Just read Jesus first miracle carefully.

 

[TheLittleLady]

What is your faith background? It sounds as if you have been influenced by either fundamentalist Protestantism, Mormonism, Islam, a group that has a prohibitionist mindset.

Alcohol is so important that we cannot have Holy Communion without it. It exists because God created it. Alcohol has medicinal qualities, purifying qualities, it makes the heart glad.

So the purpose is just to get intoxicated and to have a feeling of merry and happiness.Just read Jesus first miracle carefully.

Surely you are not implying that when giving the Miracle at Cana that Christ contributed to sin. Happiness, merriment from alcohol are not sinful. Getting drunk is not a sin unless one is going to do something dangerous.

Drunkenness to the point where one endangers their life or the life of others is a sin

Catechism 2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess : the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.