Blessed is the Kingdom

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Catholics & Fasting: A Thing of the Past?

Keep the Church’s fasting rules.

Maxim #8

It is interesting to me that so many Catholics I talk to believe that fasting is a thing of the past. In some ways I understand where this notion comes from, as in the United States we have almost completely done away with any substantial rule of fasting during the year. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only days when a true fast is required of the faithful while the Fridays of Lent are days when, along with the two mentioned above, we abstain from meat. As I reflect upon this fact, it strikes me that this is one of the areas where Eastern Christians seem to be justified in their criticism of too much legalism in the West. That being said, here is what the current code of canon law has to say about this subject.

Canon 1250  All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.

Canon 1251  Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Canon 1252  All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence; all adults are bound by the law of fast up to the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are educated in an authentic sense of penance.

Can. 1253  It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

One of the things that strikes me about what canon law tells us about fasting and abstinence is what is really at the heart of the practice, that being penitence.  Every Friday should bring to mind the suffering and death of Christ for the sins of all. This is why we engage in penitential practices on Fridays, to remember Christ’s suffering and death and to unite ourselves more closely to it.

It seems to me that one part of the law that has been poorly communicated in the Catholic Church is canon 1253 which gives the bishops in each country permission to substitute the discipline of fasting with other forms of penance.  Most often my conversation with Catholics centers around the fact that after the Second Vatican Council we were no longer required to abstain from meat on Fridays. What is usually missing from the conversation, however, is that it is still seen by the Church as a good practice to abstain from meat on Fridays and if one chooses not to abstain that some other penitential practice is to be performed.

Perhaps what is at the heart of this lack of doing penance on Fridays as well as the decline in numbers of Catholics taking part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is an underlying message in our culture that we don’t really need it. It seems we sometimes have an unhealthy practice of universal acceptance of practices society once considered harmful. Many of us tend to ascribe to the slogan, “I’m ok, you’re ok” when the truth of the matter is I’m not ok and neither are you. True Christian belief, while never condemning a person, does believe in the reality of sin that is present in each one of us that places us in constant need of salvation. Including practices of penance in our life, one of which is fasting, serves as a reminder that we are constantly in need of God’s grace and healing and that we are sorry for the sins we have committed.

My own hope is that one day our bishops will restore the universal practice of a Friday fast so that Catholics can once again be united each week in a common practice of prayer for the forgiveness of sins.

Update: I just noticed that my brother priest Fr. Michael Cummins had a post up also on fasting yesterday at his blog The Alternative Path. He has some great wisdom on the positive aspects of this Church discipline.

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This entry was posted by on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.

Comments

  • http://bodytheologic.wordpress.com Joshua Michael

    The ignorance regarding Friday penance bugs me quite a bit. But I also I know that I’m guilty of not being rigorous enough in prayer and penance.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Yes, my comments are simply meant to point out that we are called to penance. I am certainly not all that good at it yet!

  • http://nowealthbutlife.com Rae

    Just to clarify, you’re hoping that the bishops will:

    1. Require people to only eat a limited amount of food on Fridays and no meat (etc?)
    2. Require people to abstain from meat on Fridays
    or
    3. Require people to abstain from meat + a whole list of things

    In any case, I find it perplexing that you see the current direction from Western bishops as legalism when what you seem to be suggesting is stricter law. In my view it is not as if the bishops forbade fasting/abstinence. They just broadened the law to include a greater focus on penance as a whole. It is easily argued that this did not work, but it seems to me to be the opposite of legalism.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    My hope would be that they would restore the practice of either fasting or abstaining from meat on every Friday or both. This would not take away the encouragement to do other works of charity and prayer.

    What I was trying to say about legalism is that my observation is that many Catholics do things often more because it is a rule, than anything else. Another example is holy days of obligation. This past year we had several days that are normally holy days of obligation that because they fell close to a Sunday were not days of obligation. Many more Catholics would have attended than did, had there been a rule that said they had to. My hope is that one day we have more Catholics who attend holy days, fast, etc. because they are simply good spiritual practice.

    In the case of penance on Fridays, we used to do it because it was a rule. Then when it wasn’t, people stopped. That to me, is the worst form of legalism. This being said, I am not opposed to having Church law to help guide us in our faith. I suppose what I am saying is not that the bishops’ making a rule as being legalism, but how we apply it to our lives as Catholics.

  • http://nowealthbutlife.com Rae

    I am not yet agreeing or disagreeing with anything, just trying to understand and thinking about the implications of what I think you are saying. Since I am not a pastor of any sort I haven’t felt that it was important for me to establish a position on this, but I am happy to sort things out from the thoughts of others as they come up.

    When you say “restore” the practice of fasting or abstinence, what practice of fasting are you thinking of? The Eastern Catholics and Orthodox with whom I am most familiar (admittedly, not many) practice (or feel guilty for not practicing, as the case may be) a simple abstinence on Wednesdays and Fridays. But they don’t fast in the sense of restricting all food. Was this a Latin Rite practice until recently?

    I understand you to be critiquing a legalism of the people rather than the bishops rules, is that correct?

    Would you also like to see decreased reception of the Eucharist?

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    This conversation reminds me of past Twitter dialogue….lol.

    I don’t really think it is important for a pastor to have a position on this as the bottom line is that we follow the tradition of penance on Fridays. Fr. Hopko, who put forth these maxims is an Orthodox priest, so what he is referring to is different than what Roman Catholics would do. I wrote the post trying to stay within the Latin practice, rather than Eastern practice.

    The current Latin understanding of a fast day like, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, is to limit eating to one full meal and two smaller meals that would not equal together a regular full meal. So it does not mean to have no food at all. In the East much of the time the term fasting really means abstaining from meat, oil, dairy and alcohol.

    What I am saying with regards to legalism is that this seems to me to be a case where many people were simply following a dietary law without much thought as to why. This is probably why the bishops initiated a change that would broaden the understanding of penance on Fridays.

    My own opinion, and it is just an opinion, is that we would both regain an understanding of the importance of fasting, if it were part of our “rules” and that by giving a specific way of doing penance that is more or less common would make it easier to understand. It wouldn’t limit people to only fasting, but would at least give us a common threshold to meet. My own experience too is that it is often easier to do these things when we are all in it together. Then again, in my younger days I never really saw the point of fasting at all and loved the idea of simply engaging in the works of mercy instead.

    Some combination of prayer, fasting and almsgiving seems best to me, and in the perfect world, Christians doing it without need of a rule.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    With regards to your question on the Eucharist, I probably need more clarification.

  • http://www.fromthepulpitofmylife.blogspot.com/ Ruth Ann

    Up until I turned 21 years of age the Church required abstinence from meat, including meat based products like beef broth, every Friday throughout the year. I am certain that we started that practice before age 14, because Friday school lunch was always meatless. Meals at home usually consisted of fish on Friday or cheese casseroles. Just about anything, but no meat. To deliberately violate this was a serious sin. I believe it was general knowledge among Catholics that we were performing an act of penance because Friday was the day of Jesus death on the cross.

    Fasting was not part of the Friday penitential practices except during Lent. During Lent adults, age 21 and up to 60, observed the fast on all Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday. I actually looked forward to being old enough to participate in that. Again, to violate this penance was considered a serious sin. But when I was old enough to fast, that rules changed, and I was actually discouraged from doing the practice.

    I think it would be good to restore Friday abstinence, but I’m not so sure it should be a mortal sin to violate it.

    I think St. Therese, the Little Flower, had a better system of penance in her spirituality called “The Little Way.” It consisted in bearing wrongs, little and petty wrongs or major ones, patiently and humbly. Or doing little acts of mortification, like taking the smallest dessert and leaving the larger, tastier dessert for someone else, and offering such acts to God in reparation for sin. As it says in Psalm 51, “For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept. My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart.”

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Ruth Ann,

    I am certain that violating fasting rules are far from being a mortal sin, but I do believe strongly that if used properly they could be a great help to our living the Christian faith.

    Your recommendations from St. Therese are excellent. Thanks!

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