Posted on 04/23/2009 9:57:33 AM PDT by NYer
I don't think there are any others.
we could abstain from tv and the internet.......that would improve our souls. ;^) or better yet try a real fast....not just replacing meat with something else but not eating for a day.
Only 3 of my XX years on this planet were “landlocked”, then ... and that was when I lived in New Mexico.
Then I’d have to stay up till Midnight.
And they have airplanes and freezers now. Fish isnt that hard to come by.
You’re only 20? I’d never have guessed that!
I believe he's talking about PETA here and not about a good priest who is requesting a sacrifice on one day to strengthen their faith and to give to the poor.
Considering the Torah has an entire list of forbidden “foods”, you’re interpretation of the text quoted is faulty.
But in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses,
In stripes, in prisons, in seditions, in labours, in watchings, in FASTINGS,
In chastity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned,
Paul was warning about those who would declare certain foods ritually unclean - not about the act of fasting.
Jesus ate meat, and Jesus fasted and abstained. Jesus declared that no food was unclean: but that is a different concept than fasting.
You have to remember that in the Mosaic code certain foods were unclean. This would be the background of much of Paul's audience. But Catholics don't believe that (e.g.) pork is unclean - but we believe that abstaining from rich food and fasting is an act of virtue.
True, it's even at the Wal-mart. However, I put frozen fish in the category of "not worth cooking and eating when I could have a piece of toast and go to bed early."
They want to tell me, as I am out of town, between appointments, on a Friday, what I can EAT during a quick lunch, when I do not know the area well enough to find a Long John Silvers drive through -—
While the SAME Church allows Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius and Chris Dodd to PRETEND to be “Catholic”???
Yes, there are individual acts of courage, by various Bishops, standing up to these “Catholic” public figures.
However, when Georgetown covers up the very NAME of Jesus, to make Obama happy, and when Notre Dame invited the abomination, Obama, to speak, and offers Obama an “honorary degree”???
NOPE! This is my Church concentrating on the trivial, when a public, ceremonial EXCOMMUNICATION is needed, for the proabortion politicians.
NOPE! This is my Church concentrating on the trivial, when a public censure of priests like Father Jenkins is called for.
I MUST have some means to display my disrespect for our current Church leadership.
Instead, I see the Church trying to make ME feel “guilty” for the trivial, while that same Church accepts the absurd with very little comment.
I am sure that you are a wonderful person, and I am not, in any way, chastising you. I commend you for being able to continue in YOUR faith, in times such as these.
Me?
My Church needs to LEAD BY EXAMPLE!
Not by cheap talk and silly rules for the sheep.
Yes, I can’t deny that Christians indeed are to fast. I just don’t think we are to be commanded to fast by others.
Fish - it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
Catz would agree ;-).
And so who's forbidding here? If meat were forbidden, we couldn't eat it the other days of the week, could we?
This is *fasting* from a particular kind of food. Which the Bible says we are supposed to do.
The Torah listed clean and unclean foods. Those laws were in force until God told Peter to “rise, kill and eat,” and that He had made the unclean foods clean.
Acts 10:13-15
“And a voice came to him “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.”
So the quoting of the text is not faulty.
Dear friend, the bishop is not forbiding any foods. From the time of Christ, Christians opted to take Wednesdays (the day Our Lord was betrayed) and Fridays (the day Our Lord was crucified) as their penitential days for fast and abstinence. Over the years, the fast was lightened, then erduced only to Fridays and, more recently, made optional. The good bishop is reminding his flock of these ancient traditions.
We fast for many reasons. Even if there were no other reason to fast, we fast out of obedience: Our Lord and His Apostles tell us to (Matthew 17:17-20). We also fast to discipline the body so that we can focus more intently on the spiritual. And we fast to do penance, for our own sins and those of the world. We fast in reparation for abortion.
“I believe he’s talking about PETA here,” :) I don’t think so - he’s warning us not to start making extra commandments, I think.
Rules are always for the faithful to follow. You risk joining the unfaithful by rebelling against what you acknowledge is trivial.
This Bishop does not look absurd in the slightest.
Do you think you're the only person with a busy, out-of-town schedule? I never said keeping Friday abstinence was easy ... and I never claimed never to forget. Just that forgetting was a weakness to overcome, not be pandered to.
As for the rest?
On the one hand, I agree with you ... on the other hand some of our leaders' apparent failure to do their jobs is no excuse for failure on our part.
Contrary to popular opinion (fostered in part by some of these failed leaders) Friday Penitence was never done away with ... and abstinence from meat is still the suggested way of doing it.
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