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

[narses]

Here is the question I asked that you ignore time and again. Why won’t you answer?

Why must there be a strict Biblical instruction for the specific Lenten acts of penance, prayers or for almsgiving? All three sets of pius practices and spiritual exercise are themselves clearly Biblical, no?

{{{I ASK AGAIN and AGAIN}}}}

[LiteKeeper]

Why must there be a strict Biblical instruction for the specific Lenten acts of penance, prayers or for almsgiving? All three sets of pius practices and spiritual exercise are themselves clearly Biblical, no?

I have answered several times, and you have apparently missed them. I am not objecting to the practices you mentioned. There is certainly Biblical support for them. What I am objecting to is the alleged "season" of Lent, as if there was Biblical support for it. There is not. And there are many who believe that these "sacrifices" are obligatory. I certainly spoke to a lot of Roman Catholic soldiers during my years as an Army chaplain who were under the impression that the practices of Lent were obligatory. The fact is, they are not. Doesn't mean we don't do those things, but they have no value if not done completely voluntarily.

[narses]

I am not objecting to the practices you mentioned. There is certainly Biblical support for them.

Well good.

What I am objecting to is the alleged "season" of Lent, as if there was Biblical support for it.

Why must you insist that the seasons have specific Biblical support when they simply signify an agreed time to practice what you concede are clearly Christian acts? Does not Holy Writ say that Paul said “Much time had now passed and sailing had become hazardous because the time of the fast had already gone by..” -- what "time of fast" was that?

Doesn't mean we don't do those things, but they have no value if not done completely voluntarily.

Every adult Catholic who follows the laws of the Church does so as a free man. The choice to sin or not is ours just as it is yours, ditto the choice to pray, to fast or to give alms. Your very odd attempts to detract from the pious practices of others confuses me. Why do you do this?

[baa39]

Touche, Narses.

We’re Catholics! One great advantage is we don’t have to be neurotically, compulsively “Biblical”! We have zillions of beneficial, devout, time-tested practices and prayers that increase one’s holiness and bring grace, and have been practiced for centuries.

The internet is not “Biblical”...you sola types might want to get offline: this is probably a tool of the devil invented by Papists to ensnare you into non-Biblical practices like fasting, practicing the Works of Mercy, praying the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet and other scary, dangerous things.

[narses]

:)

[Melian]

Well, it says in the New Testament that Christ fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days. Catholics choose to emulate Him during the season of Lent. Catholics are required to take up the cross and follow Christ. Following Christ involves dying to yourself and sacrifice. Catholics do this voluntarily. It’s really rather beautiful. We do it together as a united community during Lent. We can fast and abstain from meat to honor God any time we want, of course; but we do it together at Lent.

Christ was a Jew. He followed all the Jewish feasts every year of His life. There are Jewish feasts involving a “season” of penitence and reconciliation. Was He following those obligatory Jewish customs “voluntarily?” Of course. He obviously believed ritual and tradition and custom were valuable— He practiced them all! And He even set up new ones!

You seem to object because Catholics choose to try to emulate Christ’s actions by fasting and praying for 40 days. As a chaplain, you must know the significance of the number 40. If this method of prayer and sacrifice, a season of purification, was good enough for Jesus, as is documented in the Bible, then it’s certainly good enough for us Catholics. If Jesus did it, that’s all the “biblical support” anybody should need.

Catholicism is the most wonderful, deep, and gorgeous spiritual experience. I invite anyone who wants to learn the facts of Catholicism, or feels the need to “correct” us, to read books on it by Madrid, Kreeft, and Hahn. Just read one of these books before casting a stone. Most of their books examine Catholicism from a Protestant perspective, but are factual about Catholicism.

[Mad Dawg]

What I am objecting to is the alleged "season" of Lent, as if there was Biblical support for it.

This is unclear.

but they have no value if not done completely voluntarily.

I'm not sure what sort of "value" we're talking about here. And I'm not sue what completely voluntary might mean, on the ground. DO my taxes, or my community service, or my complying with a request of my wife have no value unless that are, every minute, completely voluntary?

This sounds like it might be what I call the "country music heresy". In its full-blown form this heresy goes, "I know longer FEEL in love with you, so I am free to fool around with somebody else for whom I have [unspecified] 'feelings.'"

When my wife and I are having a big disagreement (for example, when she fails to pay homage to my obvious wonderfulness), I may not FEEL like I love her, but it is still important for me to remember I love her and to tell her so and to behave in a loving way, because love is not a feeling.

When I feel as unwilling to go to Mass as I feel right now, sometimes it is all the more important to haul my sorry behind into a pew because my relationship with Christ is not merely about feelings. Feelings are the gravy, the meat is in the commitment.

Yes, certain aspects of spiritual discipline are laid on Catholics as "obligatory". It has been shown on this thread that even as it touches the lengthy interval before Easter (and what's wrong with the word "season?") these disicplines vary among different groups which are Catholic, Romans doing one thing, Maronites another, Byzantines yet another.

But what they all share is an aspect of community, namely: shared activity. What kind of marriage would it be if husband and wife shared in no activity, and is sometimes one of them shared, not for the sake of the activity but for the sake of the sharing?

And please be clear that these are NOT rigid requirements. If a Catholic CAN fast, then he should. If medical conditions or extreme situations, (warfare, for instance) make that impossible, then he can still "keep" Lent.

I supper viewed objectively it could be a judgment call. But what kind of participation in a relationship is it when one of the members says, "I agree with you on what I hold to be the critical issues, but I don't care to share with you in worship or prayer except when I want to."

I have already discussed the Catholic for whom the obligation is some external and arbitrary nuisance. I would say such a person is immature. But even those who delay their childhood into adulthood may someday grow up, and until they do, it is not so bad for the Church to say what the expectations are.

[xsmommy]

He agreed that reptiles, like fish, are “Not Meat” for the purposes of Lenten/Friday abstinence.

good grief that sounds gross! LOL! i will stick with the home made pierogies that the Orthodox church women make to sell during lent!

[narses]

Christ was a Jew. He followed all the Jewish feasts every year of His life. There are Jewish feasts involving a “season” of penitence and reconciliation. Was He following those obligatory Jewish customs “voluntarily?” Of course. He obviously believed ritual and tradition and custom were valuable— He practiced them all! And He even set up new ones!

It appears that penitential seasons are, in fact, Biblical then. Any more attacks on those of us who are starting our Lenten imitation of Our Lord?

[LiteKeeper]

Do you understand the New Covenant? Instituted at the Resurrection, it negated all the ceremonial portions of the Torah. Jesus is now the fulfillment of all the ceremonial law. If you chose to live under the Law, Paul says you will be judged by the Law...and you don’t want that.

[narses]

LOL, you have an interesting and flawed view of the New Covenant. Our Lord also founded a visible Church, appointed Apostles who had themselves the ability and authority to appoint successors and instituted the Sacraments by which the Visible Church was to minister to all the nations.

What odd authority do you claim to teach such dfalsehoods as you do?

[LiteKeeper]

That is your claim...I reject many of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. I reject Apostolic Succession, and I reject the institution of Sacraments as being authoritative. We celebrate the Lord's Supper as a memorial to his death and resurrection.

And with that, we will probably need to end this debate. But, that is the position of Protestants...we reject "Romanism" and it's claims to exclusive authority within the Church. And we reject the assertion that my ordination, for instance, is invalid because I was not ordained by a celibate man who fails to meet the qualifications for a leader in the church as recorded in the Apostle Paul's letters to Timothy (chap 3) and Titus. There is valid ministry outside of the Roman Catholic Church...not the least of which is the Orthodox Church, which doesn't recognize the Pope as The Vicar of Christ.

[narses]

LOL, what “authority” was cited in your “ordination”? What denomination do you claim authorizes your spreading of falsehoods and efforts to undermine the pious practices of Christians?

[Mad Dawg]

I reject many of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.

U think we kind of guessed that.

And with that, we will probably need to end this debate.

Debate? You call that a debate? I saw no debate. I barely saw a "frank exchange of views:" with the usual frustrating aspect that the characterization of the Catholic view seemed to me to be rich with misunderstanding of it -- as is often the case. IMHO this was more shadow boxing than debate.

[LiteKeeper]

the characterization of the Catholic view seemed to me to be rich with misunderstanding of it

I have studied the Roman Catholic Church extensively. I wonder if you really understand what the Church teaches. Have you studied Roman Catholicism as it is practiced outside of the US...very different from the American iteration.

Anyway, may your Lenten season be all that you need it to be.

[steve86]

Comments such as your #73 are a great Catholic “Cliffsnotes” for readers such as myself. That this particular comment describes another Rite, with its elegance and richness, is a bonus. Thanks. I shall look for the Byzantine thread presently.

[Mad Dawg]

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Who knows, maybe I don’t understand Catholicism. On the other hand I do distinguish between a “denomination” as a social phenomenon and a the teaching of that group.

I mean, among some, Catholics have a reputation for being anti-sex. And it may well be that in Catholicism as in other groups, humanity’s endemic conflicts about sex show themselves in less than benign ways.

But just as one will find a lot of sick people in hospitals, so one can find a lot of confused people clustering around what just might be a source of truth. I mean it’s not clear that the, so to speak, “religious neurosis” of a lot of Catholics is caused by the Catholic Church, any more than the sickness of hospital patients is caused by the hospital.

The “story” about hot Baptist chicks in Jackson, MS was that since they were “saved” they felt perfectly safe in engaging in fornication. I’m not sure that was true, I’m just saying it was the story. But even if it WERE true, I wouldn’t blame it on Baptist teaching.

So who knows? Maybe I am provincial in my outlook. I just see you suggesting that a sense of oppressive anxiety about Lent which was exhibited by some people you spoke to is the fault of Catholic teaching.

I see the anxiety. I see the Church. I don’t think the Church causes the anxiety any more than I think hospitals cause obesity in the patients who consult physicians but do not comply and may not even understand what the physicians say.

That some people suffer from anorexia nervosa is not the fault of people who say that eating too much has undesirable health consequences. That some people have a self-defeating approach to Lent may not be Lent’s fault.

[narses]

You avoid answering simple questions. I will restate, who ordained you, when and in what capacity?

[LiteKeeper]

I was ordained by the American Baptist denomination in 1979 as a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hold a Master of Divinity degree from Talbot School of Theology, BIOLA University, La Mirada, California.

[GOP Poet]

Thank you for the post. Lots of inspiration and thoughts to contemplate and meditate on.