Why was abstaining from meat considered a penance if it was a relatively rare luxury for many?

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

I’'m not sure I’ve ever heard anybody say those exact words, but at least in my part of the country, people devour meat — barbecue, sausage, fried chicken, ham, bacon — and if you served a meal without it, you’d get very funny looks. Except during Lent, Friday abstinence is unknown. Non-Catholics just can’t grasp it. And for one such as me, who adheres to the default practice of abstinence on all Fridays (not just Lent), no one knows quite what to make of it — it is not something I discuss, but if I do have to tell anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, they find it very strange.

I get what you mean, I myself fast every Wednesday and Friday from meat (lots of pasta, pizza and seafood), it usually only comes up in conversation when going out to eat with others on either Wednesday or Friday…

…I find that most people (not all) are familiar with Friday fasting, but I’ve gotten some strange looks for Wednesday fasting.

Generally speaking, people in the Southern United States, where I live, are rather hedonistic (for lack of a better word) where food is concerned — the more, the tastier, the heartier, the better (and all the public health issues that go with this). Aside from Louisiana, and nowadays, the Charlotte and Raleigh metropolitan areas in North Carolina (which are becoming basically Northern enclaves due to in-migration), Southern culture is not a Catholic culture. Penance is an unknown concept. Abstaining from any sort of food would only be understood in a health context. (Not sure how this impacts Jews who keep kosher.) You have people for whom you might be the only practicing Catholic they’ve ever known — one Baptist co-worker of mine, raised in a very insular environment, once struggled to ask me about the concept of nuns, she referred to them as “those women”, couldn’t articulate what she was talking about.

HomeschoolDad:

No doubt it is theologically significant and symbolic. But I find Friday abstinence, taken all by itself, to be more of a minor inconvenience than anything else.

That’s fine. I’m not sure what you think the penance is supposed to be?

Oh… total abstinence from all animal products. An hour spent in chapel kneeling before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, reciting 15 decades of the rosary. Things like that. When reflecting on the enormity of my sins, I have to marvel at what a merciful Lord we have, to allow His Church to prescribe such token penances as we have. It is far easier to expiate our sins in this life, rather than leave them unexpiated and have to suffer for them in purgatory.

I will confess that I would be the first to be “slack” in the matter of the penance we actually do, versus the penance we should be doing.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Before the emancipation of serfs in Europe, their lives were pretty much irrelevant.

Not to the serfs, they weren’t.

And yes, meat was eaten in much smaller proportions than it commonly is today. Proportionally, the amount of land required to raise animals, feed the animals, and eventually slaughter them for meat is much more than the land required for grains or even for vegetables, and this was all done with far more primitive equipment. Livestock are a significant contributor to man-made climate change precisely for this reason. Using a bone to flavor a large quantity of food might have been possible, but actual full cuts of meat were costly, especially when the animals raised at the time would have yielded significantly less meat than the animals of today.

Exactly. Meat was (and is) hard to raise, compared to grains, fruits, and vegetables. Eggs and dairy are fairly passive, but fleshmeat takes a lot of work and resources, even if you hunt — someone has to process the meat.

Jone’s Moral Theology lists many legitimate exceptions to Friday abstinence. I’m not sure how these would play out, now that the Church (at least in the United States) allows an alternate penance of one’s prayerful choosing:

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I have found that some non-Catholics can really get themselves into a snit, if you won’t eat the meat that they offer you on Friday. Not very tolerant, if you ask me. Maybe a sign that they have issues with Catholicism in general?

A bit off topic, but I recall reading the account of some traveler in the 18th Century remarking that the Irish were the healthiest and best looking people in Europe. Their diet, this person said, pretty much lacked grain products or any substantial amount of meat. Though both were plentiful in Ireland, the English landowners took most of that for rent and sold it for cash. Anyway, the Irish diet was boiled potatoes with the skin on, and buttermilk (the butter went to the landlords) with a trifling bit of meat (usually pork) or fish.

A healthy diet, I guess.

I have heard that you could survive on potatoes and milk, if you had to. Irish food is known for being quite hearty and tasty.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-survive-on-just-potatoes-and-milk

 

[Mintaka]

If people think that abstinence from meat, etc. isn’t difficult enough, those people have every right, as individuals, to abstain from other things too. (Although it’s prudent to consult with a priest about it.)

However, there have always been people for whom abstinence from meat is too difficult, or who are given every dispensation automatically because the Church doesn’t want them skimping on meals, or spending all their time worrying. The Church has always strongly associated meat with good nutrition and health, if one is having trouble with eating just carbs and veggies or the occasional fruit.

St. Alphonsus Liguori’s Moral Theology talks a lot about this, encouraging pregnant women, women nursing babies, and even mothers of young energetic children to eat meat for their health and the health of their kids; for soldiers to eat whatever food they are issued in the field or in barracks; and for cooks not to worry about doing their job, tasting food, and snatching meals on breaks. Doing a lot of heavy labor? You should eat. People who feel faint, nauseated, dizzy, or get headaches from fasting are specifically excused. And so on.

Heck, there was even an exception from fasting and abstinence for girls worried about being pleasingly plump for their new husbands at their right-after-Lent weddings. (Well, it was worded one way, but I’m pretty sure the good fathers were worried about starved girls not being able to have healthy sex or bear children.)

Fasting and abstinence are spiritual helps as well as acts of penance; and it’s helpful for all Catholics of age to do it together, if possible. If not possible, it’s not something to worry about.

 

[Mintaka]

I forgot to say that wild fish wasn’t what people usually ate. The Roman Empire and the monasteries introduced the custom of having a “vivarium,” or stocked fishpond, for easier access to food.

There’s a place in Germany that I saw on a travel show, where they had bought the old village vivarium and set up a fish restaurant right next door. The fishpond was full of this village breed of perch (IIRC), and they caught some every day (I forget if it was with a net or a fish trap). Then they made it into all sorts of grilled, baked, and even burger-ed fish dishes. It was a real fish farm without much work.

The economics differed, depending on who owned the fishponds. Often it was part of a lord’s estate or a monastery’s lands; but sometimes it was in the commons, like grazing land. Either way, there was plenty of fish, even if you might not have much variety.

It was also common to catch a wild eel and keep him in your well, as a natural well-cleaner. Some eels were allowed to live for over a century, but a lot of people would wait until a big occasion, get a new skinny eel, and eat the old big eel. Eels were also raised in vivariums, but you had to keep them separate from fish vivariums.

When it came to meat, you shouldn’t primarily be thinking of meat cuts. Mr. Pig was usually being turned into bacon, ham, and sausage. His bones became stock, a lot of his tendons got turned into craft materials, his skin got turned into leather, his feet got turned into pickled preserves. Cow horns were also craft materials. Hooves were glue. Bladders were containers, or if you were feeling flush, they were inflatable balls for games. Every bit of an animal was used.

Depending on how you made it, pre-modern sausage or ham could last for years. That was the whole point – you had to stretch your food out from one growing season to the next.

 

[Mintaka]

I also forgot to say that olden days fasting meant one meal a day (unica comestione), and that olden days fasting and abstinence both included not having sex.

Which was why the bride to be couldn’t get married until after Lent or Advent.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If people think that abstinence from meat, etc. isn’t difficult enough, those people have every right, as individuals, to abstain from other things too. (Although it’s prudent to consult with a priest about it.)

However, there have always been people for whom abstinence from meat is too difficult, or who are given every dispensation automatically because the Church doesn’t want them skimping on meals, or spending all their time worrying. The Church has always strongly associated meat with good nutrition and health, if one is having trouble with eating just carbs and veggies or the occasional fruit.

St. Alphonsus Liguori’s Moral Theology talks a lot about this, encouraging pregnant women, women nursing babies, and even mothers of young energetic children to eat meat for their health and the health of their kids; for soldiers to eat whatever food they are issued in the field or in barracks; and for cooks not to worry about doing their job, tasting food, and snatching meals on breaks. Doing a lot of heavy labor? You should eat. People who feel faint, nauseated, dizzy, or get headaches from fasting are specifically excused. And so on.

I am pleased to hear this reiterated. I have always found Jewish health practices to be very inspiring, because concepts of “take care of yourself”, “make sure you get nourished properly”, “don’t do things that will hurt you”, and so on, are just parts of the whole Jewish cultural milieu. Moses Maimonides praised the health benefits of chicken soup. Who knew?

This is why I’ve always been just a little scandalized by what comes across as a neglect of practical health considerations among some Catholics. It seems sometimes that we are so wrapped up in penance and mortification, that we forget that the goal is to discipline one’s body (and, indirectly, one’s soul), and deprive the taste and belly of what is desired and most palatable, not to starve oneself into illness. I have a chronic health condition, which has been part of my life for 40 years, that requires me to watch everything I eat, and to take in a lot of protein and relatively few carbs. I could probably get by with never observing abstinence — but I choose to do so, what little discomfort or irritation I feel from being forced to eat non-meat forms of protein, is precisely the kind of light penance that we all need (and I need far more than that).

I also recall reading (as I said the other day, 45 years of reading is a whole lot of reading, don’t remember where) that Friday abstinence does not strictly bind, if the faithful are in a part of the world where a lot of meat is eaten as just part of daily life. Argentina and Serbia come immediately to mind. I have to wonder how the latter plays out in Serbian Orthodoxy.

Heck, there was even an exception from fasting and abstinence for girls worried about being pleasingly plump for their new husbands at their right-after-Lent weddings.

This is, to say the least, interesting. Just goes to show, you learn something new every day.

 

[LilyM]

Here’s my reasoning: in simpler times, when people didn’t have as many different kinds of food available to them, for many (if not most) meat was a luxury, relatively rare compared to today, and very poor people couldn’t afford it at all. Yet giving it up was considered penitential. Would it not have made more sense in those times, for penance to have a “bite” to it (no pun intended), to give up a common staple food — such as bread, fruit, or vegetables — than to require people to abstain from a food that they didn’t eat that much anyway?

By the same token, today meat is commonplace and many people feel like they can’t really eat without it — “if there’s no meat, it’s not really a meal”. Prescribing abstinence from meat is a real penance for those whose palates are used to it. In our times, it makes perfect sense. But why in pre-modern times?

Surely not every penance is supposed to be particularly difficult? If I were assigned a decade of the Rosary, or even a whole Rosary, to pray following confession, I would be unlikely to find it especially burdensome. Nor, I suspect, would most folks.

And remember St Terese of Lisieux’s “little way”? We don’t necessarily “earn” heaven by the severity of our penances, we can do small but meaningful things.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Surely not every penance is supposed to be particularly difficult? If I were assigned a decade of the Rosary, or even a whole Rosary, to pray following confession, I would be unlikely to find it especially burdensome. Nor, I suspect, would most folks.

And remember St Terese of Lisieux’s “little way”? We don’t necessarily “earn” heaven by the severity of our penances, we can do small but meaningful things.

I agree with what you say, but I just ponder the enormity of my sins, compared with the lightness of the penance.

I fully expect my purgatory to be along the lines of “all right, party’s over, you know that you did leave a lot of ragged edges when you had to check out so suddenly, you were an utter slackbird at doing penance for your sins when you had so, so many opportunities, yes, you saved your soul — just barely — but you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, you had your opportunity back then to do it the easy way, but that was then, this is now, roll up your sleeves, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you”.

I’ll just be glad to have saved my soul, if in fact I do.

 

[Minks]

I’ve never, ever, considered fasting to be a penance, except for the few times when a priest would include fasting as a part of my confessional penance.

I’m guessing that I was taught, either by my parents or by the Sisters of St Benedict, that fasting is a gift to Our Lord, Jesus Christ, because I grew up with that belief. Since He gave us His Life, fasting for Jesus is but a very small gift on our part.

We can strive to be the best that we can be in mind and body in using the time that we’re given on earth, we can pray frequently and sincerely from the depths of our beings, and we can make small sacrifices for Jesus in gratitude for His role in our salvation.

I do make an effort to pray (both, formal prayers and off-the-cuff) to Jesus at different times throughout
each day, and to talk to Him as I would talk to a good friend. To fast for Him is just a tiny, tiny way to say, Thank You, DearJesus!”

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’ve never, ever, considered fasting to be a penance, except for the few times when a priest would include fasting as a part of my confessional penance.

I’m guessing that I was taught, either by my parents or by the Sisters of St Benedict, that fasting is a gift to Our Lord, Jesus Christ, because I grew up with that belief. Since He gave us His Life, fasting for Jesus is but a very small gift on our part.

We can strive to be the best that we can be in mind and body in using the time that we’re given on earth, we can pray frequently and sincerely from the depths of our beings, and we can make small sacrifices for Jesus in gratitude for His role in our salvation.

I do make an effort to pray (both, formal prayers and off-the-cuff) to Jesus at different times throughout
each day, and to talk to Him as I would talk to a good friend. To fast for Him is just a tiny, tiny way to say, Thank You, DearJesus!”

Good thoughts. I would venture to say that fasting is a form of penance, but it is not just penance. Protestants fast because the Bible says to. They do not view it as penance because penance is not a concept for them — “Jesus did it all” and I need make no atonement for my sins, that’s already been taken care of, and there’s nothing I could ever do anyway in comparison to that, it wouldn’t do any good.

If Protestants have a concept of penance or atonement for one’s sins, it would come as news to me. I will welcome clarification.

 

[HollyDolly]

Funny you mention this. The Cathar Perfects didnot eat meat.You can look up their beiefs why.They ate fish because it was believed it didn’t reproduce exactly like say a cow would through intercourse. These were the leaders of their church.For ordinary believers who were married and had children, the dietery issue of meat may have been different. The Church launched a crusade against them, considering them heretics.

 

[HollyDolly]

We did it to commenorate the sacrfice Jesus made for us. Always remember when the Pope ,forgot which one, said it was okay for catholics to eat meat on Friday.My father replied to that with some force" I don’t care what the Pope says, we are eating fish.!"

 

[stpurl]

A.The Pope did not suddenly say it was OK to eat meat on Fridays. What happened in the US in 1965 was that the bishops of the US asked for an INDULT (that is, a permission to do something that was normally not permitted) to allow US Catholics to choose a penance on Friday OUTSIDE of Lent, stating that it was perfectly acceptable for that penance to CONTINUE being abstinence. This was done by the US bishops who had been told that with many Catholics becoming vegetarians that the meat abstinence was not meaningful. This was done to allow both abstinence for most, and something equal for vegetarians. However, because of the societal upheaval and bad catechesis, people were not taught this correctly. And yes, the NORM for the Catholic Church is Friday abstinence year around. And the Indult in the US Church is Friday abstinence in Lent and some sort of penance, which could include abstinence on non-Lent Fridays.
B. It was never about eating FISH instead of MEAT. Plenty of people don’t like fish (raises hand, yelling ME! ME!) and instead had Mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, lentils, etc. etc.

 

[Vico]

We did it to commenorate the sacrfice Jesus made for us. Always remember when the Pope ,forgot which one, said it was okay for catholics to eat meat on Friday.My father replied to that with some force" I don’t care what the Pope says, we are eating fish.!"

That was Saint Pope Paul VI. Actually recommended that Catholics continue to abstain from meat on Fridays, however allowed for other practice:

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.

http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-...cuments/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini.html

 

[HomeschoolDad]

A.The Pope did not suddenly say it was OK to eat meat on Fridays. What happened in the US in 1965 was that the bishops of the US asked for an INDULT (that is, a permission to do something that was normally not permitted) to allow US Catholics to choose a penance on Friday OUTSIDE of Lent, stating that it was perfectly acceptable for that penance to CONTINUE being abstinence. This was done by the US bishops who had been told that with many Catholics becoming vegetarians that the meat abstinence was not meaningful. This was done to allow both abstinence for most, and something equal for vegetarians. However, because of the societal upheaval and bad catechesis, people were not taught this correctly. And yes, the NORM for the Catholic Church is Friday abstinence year around. And the Indult in the US Church is Friday abstinence in Lent and some sort of penance, which could include abstinence on non-Lent Fridays.

Exactly this. But all people heard, was the “we can eat meat on Fridays now”, and that’s precisely what they did. Our culture regards Friday as the “yee-hah” day, “TGIF”, and present-day average Catholics have only the haziest notion of what penance even is.

B. It was never about eating FISH instead of MEAT. Plenty of people don’t like fish (raises hand, yelling ME! ME!) and instead had Mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, lentils, etc. etc.

But some people think this. Fish is protein, and it is satisfying. It is also easy for restaurants to sell, because it is not easy for everyone to prepare at home — even frozen fish baked in the oven has a distinct smell. Much as I love salmon cakes, the smell while cooking leads me to call them “chitlins of the sea”. I insist upon open windows.

In the South, non-Catholics cannot comprehend how we regard fish as “not meat” — I can see their point, it really “kind of” is, the flesh of aquatic animals. When I was working, I found that not only was I the only Catholic whom some people knew fairly well, but that they had no clue about the “no meat on Fridays” thing. In one way, I find this kind of refreshing, in that I am able to teach them traditional practices, whereas if it were a heavily Catholic area, there would be all sorts of “modern” Catholics “running interference” and saying “oh, don’t listen to him, he’s a religious fanatic, we don’t do that stuff anymore”.

 

[MarkRome]

for many (if not most) meat was a luxury, relatively rare compared to today, and very poor people couldn’t afford it at all. Yet giving it up was considered penitential.

Meat was and still is (to some degree) associated with festivities/celebrations. (thanksgiving turkey anyone?) Celebrations usually involved bringing out the meat, even for the poor, they would save up for special occasions. During days of fasting, we are giving up (not partaking in) things associated with celebrations.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

for many (if not most) meat was a luxury, relatively rare compared to today, and very poor people couldn’t afford it at all. Yet giving it up was considered penitential.

Meat was and still is (to some degree) associated with festivities/celebrations. (thanksgiving turkey anyone?) Celebrations usually involved bringing out the meat, even for the poor, they would save up for special occasions. During days of fasting, we are giving up (not partaking in) things associated with celebrations.

Very true, but it’s worth noting that various localities have macaroni and cheese festivals. Also, the state of South Carolina, a place where it is very difficult to get a bad meal (think a Baptist Louisiana), has festivals devoted to cornbread, okra, and chitlins, which would surely be okay for Friday abstinence, as they are offal and not flesh meat.

Mustering the courage to eat them is another thing entirely. (Non-Southern readers should Google at this point.) I’ve never had the pleasure.

 

[PilgrimMichelangelo]

The Wednesday and Friday fasts are still kept by the Orthodox Church. No meat, fish, eggs, dairy, wine or oil. For most of the year with certain relaxations given ( for Fish, Wine and Oil) if a feast day falls on a Wedesday or Friday. This is part of Apostolic Tradition and is the Christian commemoration of the day that Jesus was betrayed (Wednesday) and the day He was Crucified (Friday). The ancient Jews used to fast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so the Apostles baptized that tradition and aligned it with those major events in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

The Wednesday and Friday fasts are still kept by the Orthodox Church. No meat, fish, eggs, dairy, wine or oil. For most of the year with certain relaxations given ( for Fish, Wine and Oil) if a feast day falls on a Wedesday or Friday. This is part of Apostolic Tradition and is the Christian commemoration of the day that Jesus was betrayed (Wednesday) and the day He was Crucified (Friday). The ancient Jews used to fast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so the Apostles baptized that tradition and aligned it with those major events in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not trying to be cute here, but if Orthodox fasting consists of this, what, then, can they eat? Bread and either cooked or raw vegetables, along with fruit? Nuts and legumes? Either plain water or juices? That would be a wholesome diet in itself, but would contain virtually no protein, aside from the legumes. Are there any other foods I’m missing?

I suppose it would be essentially a vegan diet without any oils (olive, vegetable, or margarine). Now that would be penitential!

I recall reading somewhere, don’t remember where, that such fasting leaves the body weakened to some extent, and aside from the spiritual aspect, serves to “slow down” the body and make body and soul more suitable for prayer and contemplation. Is that right? Last year, I had to fast for two days (only clear broth and juice), in preparation for a medical procedure, and I felt this — a sense of peacefulness accompanied with low energy.

 

[Lucy_1]

I didn’t read all the previous replies so forgive me if this was mentioned. I’m reading a book on monastic reforms, and it suggests that one of the reasons many orders abstained from meat either completely or at certain times of the year was due to the fact that it took the life of an animal. Today when people get their meat already butchered from the grocery store, I think maybe we’ve lost touch with this aspect of things, and perhaps this was part of the reason for this particular penance?