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)

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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

[A.A. Cunningham]

What is absurd is your thinly veiled agenda.

[Campion]

What you quoted ought to be true of the life of the believer every day.

So making a point of reminding ourselves of it annually is out of line?

I guess since you love your wife every day, you most certainly don't celebrate your wedding anniversary. Right? I mean, to be consistent ...

[the invisib1e hand]

Please see my Lenten recipe!

If you can find a way to deliver, let me know.

[kailbo]

With all respect, I see read nothing suggesting lent in those verses.

[diamond6]

I’ll be praying for your health MD!!

[diamond6]

Please see post 17.

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you. It's not really bad, it's just recalcitrant. I'm getting the distinct impression that I might die in 20 years give or take.

Tra La.

[TaraP]

Great post!
I have committed a 3 sat Spiritual Food fast as a commitment to GOD to live by the spirit and honor that the food we eat is a gift from GOD and sharing with other’s is the commandment of GOD in sharing his spirit..

That we all belong to GOD’s Family John 3:1-3

Give Generously 2 Corinthians 9: 6-9

Strive for unity and give to other’s

[LiteKeeper]

A constant reminder, and institutionalizing it, are two different things. Lent is a time of obligation for many Roman Catholics. And there is no justification in Scripture for doing so. 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. What I do voluntarily is one thing; what I do out of a sense of obligation is something altogether different. And the Apostle Paul addresses those things in his letter to the Colossians.

[annalex]

Being Catholic is voluntary.

[LiteKeeper]

Yeah, right. And there is nothing called a day of obligation. And no one puts pressure on good Catholics to attend the Mass every week.

[annalex]

If you choose to be Catholic, obligations come with it, and pressure comes with obligations, yes, thank God.

[LiteKeeper]

If you choose to be Catholic, obligations come with it, and pressure comes with obligations, yes, thank God.

Obligations that come from human tradition, not from Scripture.

[annalex]

The Church received that mandate from Christ. That is in the Scripture.

[ArrogantBustard]

I asked my Pastor about Turtle soup one year ... He agreed that reptiles, like fish, are “Not Meat” for the purposes of Lenten/Friday abstinence.

[annalex]

Turtle soup

I had impure thoughts about a jar of caviar I have in the cupboard last night.

[ArrogantBustard]

With all respect, I see read nothing suggesting lent in those verses.

And that is your problem ... not ours.

[ArrogantBustard]

Frog legs, anyone?

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

[annalex]

Where is tuna casserole in the Bible?

[narses]

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}}}}