Intro to Fast and Abstinence 101

Concord Pastor ^ | February 25, 2009 | Concord Pastor

[NYer]

There are particular days of fast and abstinence in Lent when the whole Church participates in this Lenten practice as a community of believers. But individual Christians are invited to fast in ways that each determines from his/her own experience and circumstances. The following reflections might be helpful to all of us as we consider fasting in the season ahead of us.

Here's what the Lord says of fasting through the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 58:

Is this the manner of fasting I wish,
of keeping a day of penance:
That a man bow his head like a reed,
and lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own...
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted...

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.
He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.

+ + +

In the same spirit, the following advice is convincing and compelling as we face a Lenten fast:

Lent is a season that calls us:

to fast from discontent and to feast on gratitude;
to fast from anger and to feast on patience;
to fast from bitterness and to feast on forgiveness;
to fast from self-concern and to feast on compassion;
to fast from discouragement and to feast on hope;
to fast from laziness and to feast on commitment;
to fast from complaining and to feast on acceptance;
to fast from lust and to feast on respect;
to fast from prejudice and to feast on understanding;
to fast from resentment and to feast on reconciliation;
to fast from lies and to feast on the truth;
to fast from wasted time and to feast on honest work;
to fast from grimness and to feast on joy;
to fast from suspicion and to feast on trust;
to fast from idle talk and to feast on prayer and silence;
to fast from guilt and to feast on the mercy of God.

(Based on a version often attributed to William Arthur Ward)

+ + +

Still not convinced? Spiritual writer Thomas Merton fillets some of our standard Lenten practices with a very sharp blade:

Such exercises as fasting cannot have their proper effect unless our motives for practicing them spring from personal meditation. We have to think of what we are doing, and the reasons for our actions must spring from the depths of our freedom and be enlivened by the transforming power of Christian love. Otherwise, our self-imposed sacrifices are likely to be pretenses, symbolic gestures without real interior meaning. Sacrifices made in this formalistic spirit tend to be mere acts of external routine performed in order to exorcise interior anxiety and not for the sake of love. In that case, however, our attention will tend to fix itself upon the insignificant suffering which we have piously elected to undergo, and to exaggerate it in one way or another, either to make it seem unbearable or else to make it seem more heroic than it actually is. Sacrifices made in this fashion would be better left unmade. It would be more sincere as well as more religious to eat a full dinner in a spirit of gratitude than to make some minor sacrifice a part of it, with the feeling that one is suffering martyrdom.

-Thomas Merton in The Climate of Monastic Prayer

+ + +

The reflections above speak to our individual choices regarding fasting in Lent. Here are the laws regarding our communal fasting as a Church:

ASH WEDNESDAY and GOOD FRIDAY*
are days of FAST and ABSTINENCE

What does that mean?

On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday,
Catholics over 14 years of age
are expected to abstain from eating meat on this day.
Catholics 18 years of age
and up to the beginning of their 60th year
are expected to fast on these days:
taking only one full meal and two other light meals,
eating nothing between meals.
(liquids between meals, however, are allowed).

*Holy Saturday is a day of fast for the elect,
those who are to be baptized at the Easter Vigil.
While fasting is not required of all the faithful,
this is an ancient tradition on this day and a great way
to support those who are to be baptized.

All the FRIDAYS of Lent are days of ABSTINENCE

What does that mean?

Catholics over 14 years of age
Are expected to abstain from eating meat
on the Fridays of Lent.

+ + +

Health concerns and “doctor’s orders”
should take precedence over the practices of fast and abstinence.
Fast and abstinence should never jeopardize one’s physical health.

DISPENSATIONS?

Pastors often receive requests from parishioners asking to be “dispensed” from fast and abstinence for particular social occasions. Of course, it is precisely on such occasions that the self-denial of fast and abstinence might be most meaningful. Such a “dispensation” is not a pastor’s to give. The Church tells us that in this matter individuals have freedom to excuse themselves but that, “no Catholic will lightly hold himself/herself excused from so hallowed an obligation as this penitential practice.”

-ConcordPastor 2009LentPostCollection

[Mad Dawg]

I find "tuna casserole" more in keeping with the Spirit of penitence and conversion.

With or without cheese?

[Desdemona]

I find "tuna casserole" more in keeping with the Spirit of penitence and conversion.

It's a penance alright.

Lent is what you make of it. Some of us have anemic issues. Makes doing a "real Lent" not doable when it's controlled with diet. That doesn't mean we can't do something else, say, the Litany of the Sacred Heart instead.

[Campion]

The imposition of this sort of thing on believers, particularly as an obligation, is to encrust the Gospel of Jesus Christ with man-made trappings that I don’t think are pleasing to our Lord.

And who gave you the authority to judge what is and isn't pleasing to Our Lord? Don't say, "The Bible"; you aren't mentioned in it, and neither am I.

But the Apostles are. To them, Christ Our Lord said: "Whatever you bind on earth, is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, is loosed in heaven."

They gave their authority to the bishops (2 Tim 2:2, et al.), where it rests today.

Attempting to make me recognize your authority to teach me sounds like an obligation you are trying to impose on me. It's one I don't recognize.

We Romanists are a funny lot. We don't listen to nobody nobody sent. We listen to the shepherds Christ sent, and no others.

[Campion]

And no one puts pressure on good Catholics to attend the Mass every week.

Scripture directly commands attendance at Mass in Hebrews 10:25 and following, not to mention the implicit command ("Do this in remembrance of me") in the words of Christ himself in the Gospels..

Hebrews 6:4 speaks of the apostasy of those Jewish Christians who rejected the Christian observance (the Divine Liturgy, later called the Mass in the West) to avoid the hostility of their Jewish friends and relatives. The language in Hebrews 6:4 contains coded references to the Sacraments which are obvious to anyone who has studied the Greek Fathers:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened

"Enlightenment" is a code word for baptism.

and have tasted the heavenly gift

"The heavenly gift" is Holy Communion.

and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit

That is, have been confirmed or chrismated.

and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come

And have studied and learned the Scriptures within the Church.

if they fall away,[b] to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

[Sounds pretty bad to me.]

[Campion]

Where is tuna casserole in the Bible?

In my best Father John Hardon, S.J., impersonation:

"Suppose we begin by assuming that the tuna, when caught, had a coin in its mouth ..."

[LiteKeeper]

It is interesting that you mention Timothy. I am an ordained minister of 30 years, a pastor and Bible teacher. I am one of those selected by God to equip the saints (Eph 4:11-12). The “bishops” you refer to in Timothy are the pastors of the Church. So, I do have some authority to interpret the Word of God, and to say something of what the Bible teaches. The Bible is the only authority for the practice of the Church...even if you, what was it, oh yeah, “Romanists” disagree.

[Campion]

Sir, I don't want to "make this personal," nor do I want to insult you in any way. I will try to put this as gently and charitably as I can.

I appreciate your dedication to your ministry and I recognize you and honor you as a brother in the Lord, but, unless you hold Holy Orders in the Catholic or Orthodox churches, you have no authority that I recognize. Whoever ordained you also has no authority that I recognize.

The Pope has been an "ordained minister" for longer than 30 years, and is also a "pastor and Bible teacher". I don't think you recognize his authority any more than I recognize yours.

But unlike your claimed authority, his can be traced back to the Apostles through the same "laying on of hands" that Paul describes. If you read the early fathers, especially Ignatius and Irenaeus, you will find that this is precisely the sort of authority structure they describe in the second century church.

[Campion]

The Bible is the only authority for the practice of the Church

2 Thess 2:15 and 1 Cor 11:2 say otherwise quite clearly.

[Mad Dawg]

The Bible is the only authority for the practice of the Church...even if you, what was it, oh yeah, “Romanists” disagree.

Or not.

I mean there are at least two views. One of them may be righter than the other. You think yours is. We think ours is. Re-stating yours clarifies your position, but doesn't make it any more or less true and doesn't show why those who disagree with it should change their view.

When you were ordained, am I right in assuming that other people took part in the service, that in a way you received something from them? Did you go to seminary and get some kind of degree or certificate? Is there some document or other which you can proffer to show that you are ordained?

I guess my guess is that there is SOMETHING, some kind of "authority" in a way beyond or in addition to the Bible to which you appeal when you say you are an ordained minister.

Our claim is that we also have that kind of thing, and we believe it goes back to the Twelve and through them to our Lord. And just as your teachers had teachers, and they had teachers, and just as they relied on their predecessors and you on them, while you also seek direct access to the Bible in study and to our Lord in prayer, so we do also. And your congregation respects your teaching, but sometimes disagrees, I imagine, so we respect our pastors, while in many things we may disagree.

As Campion implies, our wise men and women look to the Bible and to the evolution of teaching in the early days of the Church, and they find a continuity. And in the verse from Thessalonians and Corinthians to which Campion refers, we find reason to rely on our pastors as they hand down the teaching they receive, with adumbrations and clarifications as the Spirit wills and informs.

If you entertain with charity, while preserving your disagreement, the explanations and Scriptural interpretations of Catholics, you may come to see that, as is demonstrated by post #64, we have a view of Scripture which takes into account the way it has been read throughout the millennia and the context in which the words were written. For better or worse, there is not the discontinuity found in some theologies based on coming to the Bible de novo as it were and deprived (as we would see it) of the commentaries, reactions, and thoughts of the early saints.

I don't think a geometrically conclusive argument can be made for either view. But for me, our view, which is not embarrassed by the Letter of James or the mention of tradition in Paul's letters is persuasive to me, which is one reason I converted to the Catholic Church.

[Mad Dawg]

I’m wondering if anyone knows anything about the Lenten practices of non-Roman churches in communion with the Holy See? I’m guessing there are variations in calendar and disciplines.

[ArrogantBustard]

Where is tuna casserole in the Bible?

That depends on what passage you were reading during dinner ...

[ArrogantBustard]

I am an ordained minister

No, you're not. And quit making it personal.

[NYer]

I’m wondering if anyone knows anything about the Lenten practices of non-Roman churches in communion with the Holy See? I’m guessing there are variations in calendar and disciplines.

I can only provide you with those of the Maronite Catholic Church but will be posting another thread, shortly, that gives some insight into the Byzantine Catholic lenten practices.

In our Maronite Rite, the season of Great Lent begins with the Sunday of the wedding at Cana, and is immediately followed by Ash Monday. It ends the Friday before Hosanna Sunday (Palm Sunday), which is the 40th day.

The season of Great Lent is like a trip we make in a boat that leads us to the shore of salvation. It is divided into seven Sundays:

The Wedding Feast at Cana, Healing of the Leper, the Hemorrhaging Woman, the Prodigal Son, the Paralyzed Man, the Blind Man, and Hosanna Sunday.

The season of Great Lent is divided into six weeks in three parts:

1- In the first three weeks of Great Lent, there is emphasis on practicing repentance during Lent, vigilance, prayer, works of righteousness, almsgiving, charity, imitation of the Savior, the prophets, the just of old who prepared Christ's coming. There is also emphasis on the Lord's teachings, his parables, and sermons. This part is called "the weeks of Lent".

2- In the 4th & 5th week, there is emphasis on Jesus' miracles which are deeds of righteousness & charity, signs & proofs that confirm the veracity of his teaching & message. This part is also a proclamation of God's glory in Jesus, a proclamation of his Passion & Death, as the Evangelist Matthew says, "He drove out the spirits with a command and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: He himself bore our sicknesses away and carried our diseases." (Matthew 8:16-17). This part is called "the two weeks of miracles".

3- In the 6th and the last week, there is emphasis on Jesus' repeated prophecies about his passion, death & resurrection, and the event of his entrance into Jerusalem on Hosanna Sunday. This part is called "Hosanna Week". On the 40th day, which is Friday (before Hosanna Sunday), the readings talk about Jesus' temptations in the desert, which is, according to the Evangelist Matthew, a reference to the temptations of the people of the Torah in the desert, whereas according to the Evangelist Luke, Jesus' temptations are related to the Passion event. Luke mentions that Jesus overcame the devil, who left the Lord "until the opportune moment" (Luke 4:13), when "Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was one of the Twelve". (Luke 22:3). On Saturday, following the 40th day of Lent, the Church remembers the event of raising Lazarus in Bethany.

On each Friday throughout the season of Great Lent, the Maronite Church offers Stations with Adoration of the Cross. On Palm Sunday, the church will be packed! This Sunday is one of great meaning for the Church of Antioch, with its historical origins in the Middle East. Children will come dressed in their Easter finery, each one carrying a pillar candle that has been decorated with flowers and/or symbols of the season. Following distribution of the palms, the pastor leads the entire congregation in a procession.

Passion Week is especially beautiful. On Holy Thursday, during Mass, there is the washing of the feet. Most Maronite parishes use children because children bring their parents ;-). It also gets them involved. On the morning of Good Friday, the priest celebrates the ancient presanctified liturgy. In the afternoon, we gather as a parish to share a meatless meal, after which we proceed to church. There we find the Crucifix, draped with a black shawl, in a stand before the altar. Before the Crucifix is an icon of the Blessed Mother. The Crucifix is flanked by two candles, one one each side, representing the two thieves. One of the candles is tied with a black ribbon. Before the Crucifix, on the floor of the Sanctuary, is a black shroud. Since the corpus cannot be removed from the Crucifix, a smaller one is placed on the shroud. The women of the parish place flowers on the shroud. Midway through the service, the men in the congregation step forward and, in groups of 6, take turns carrying the shroud around the church in procession with the priest incensing the shroud. This is done 3 times. The priest then places the shroud with corpus and flowers into a "tomb" (made from paper machier) and places the stone in front of the opening. At midnight Mass on Easter morning, the stone is removed and we find the tomb empty. The flowers are distributed to the congregation as the first gifts from our Risen Lord.

[nina0113]

I have 25 dozen eggs right now (my hens won’t quit until fall) and it would be a shame if we couldn’t eat them!

Do you do anything to preserve them? I have a really old cookbook, not a reprint, that has directions for making a solution of powdered "isinglass", I think it was (book's at home and I'm at work) which I believe is mica, and layering the eggs in that in a crock.

[nina0113]

Please see my Lenten recipe!

Don't the canned clams make it taste metallic? Or does the other stuff drown that out?

[nina0113]

I find "tuna casserole" more in keeping with the Spirit of penitence and conversion.

Have you tried making it with Tater Tots (cook them first)?

[Mad Dawg]

First: Wow! We Romans are so boring sometimes.

Second: Thanks. My point was that there are disciplines and customs which, viewed after the flesh, are about group identity and group maintenance. Byzantines do this, Maronites do that, Romans do Stations of the cross followed by a soup and bread supper (or whatever). In all these we are directing our attention to the Love of God and the great gift which the Son both is and gives.

But nobody seriously thinks soup and bread is more or less required than some other thing. But we who observe these rites and ceremonies are edified and blessed.

There are people who have not admitted or perceived their thirst for God. Of them, those brought up in religious families feel some kind of uneasy obligation to observe some customs now and then. For them, the traditions might as well be "traditions of men." Of course, they're going about it the wrong way, trying to discharge some duty and to "take care of" or "get over with" all this God 'n Jesus stuff.

But even they can receive benefits. God is gracious and in an unguarded moment some may have a sudden realization that the lives of all of us are sometimes lonely, wild, and full of mad thoughts of gratification, power, and self-divinity. Others may see in our Lady's encounter with her Son on the way to Golgotha every parent's anxiety and sorrow at the doom of our children which, without God's love, they cannot escape. And into that small fissure in the heart, some tendril of love may find a way, and there swell and grow until the heat is cracked wide open. Surely the God who uses thorn and lash and cross to save the world can use soup and bread to open a heart.

It's not the soup and bread, it's not the holy Icon, it is God, and while we weep we rejoice to see the day.

Oops, I got all frilly again. Here let me make up for it. Our Roman way is the right way. Yours is barbaric and probably idolatrous. (I hope that's more in keeping with the FR religious spirit.)

[diamond6]

No. I used two cans of baby clams, 2 cans of minced clams.

It was wonderful. My husband was swooning after eating it. Getting compliments from him only happens once and a while, and he really loved it.

[ArrogantBustard]

I have not tried the tater-tots ... perhaps I should.

Just for variety.

[nina0113]

One year I made a huge pot of tuna-cream-sauce slop, froze it, and added it to the filler-of-the-week every Friday. I hate tuna casserole. The cheese lasagna I had for lunch wasn’t very good either. Need more pierogis!