Lent (Latin: Quadragesima) is a solemn observance in the liturgical year of many Christian denominations, lasting for a period of approximately six weeks leading up to Easter Sunday. In the general Latin-rite and most Western denominations Lent is taken to run from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday) morning or to Easter Eve. In the Catholic Church, Lent lasts until Holy Thursday, while other denominations run until Easter Eve.
The Catholic Church observes the discipline of fasting or abstinence at various times each year, especially during Lent. For Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one's intake of food, which may or may not include abstinence from meat (or another type of food). The Catholic Church teaches that all people are obliged by God to perform some penance for their sins, and that these acts of penance are both personal and corporate. The purpose of fasting is spiritual focus, self discipline, imitation of Christ, and performing penance.
Contemporary Roman legislation is rooted in the 1966 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, Paenitemini, and codified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Abstinence is required throughout the year on Fridays, though the bishops' conferences in some areas allow other penitential acts (e.g., prayer, abstinence from another food, giving up an unhealthy or unnecessary habit). During Lent, on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, both abstinence and fasting are required of Catholics who are not exempted for various reasons
Roman Catholicism
Main article: Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church
For Roman Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one's intake of food to one full meal (which may not contain meat on Fridays throughout Lent) and two small meals (known liturgically as collations, taken in the morning and the evening), both of which together should not equal the large meal. Eating solid food between meals is not permitted. Fasting is required of the faithful between the ages of 18 and 59 on specified days. Complete abstinence, required of those 14 and older, is the avoidance of meat for the entire day. Partial abstinence prescribes that meat be taken only once during the course of the day.
Pope Pius XII had initially relaxed some of the regulations concerning fasting in 1956. In 1966, Pope Paul VI in his apostolic constitution Paenitemini, changed the strictly regulated Roman Catholic fasting requirements. He recommended that fasting be appropriate to the local economic situation, and that all Catholics voluntarily fast and abstain. In the United States, there are only two obligatory days of fast – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence: eating meat is not allowed. Pastoral teachings since 1966 have urged voluntary fasting during Lent and voluntary abstinence on the other Fridays of the year. The regulations concerning such activities do not apply when the ability to work or the health of a person would be negatively affected.I am not a practicing Catholic but my Mother is. I follow Lenten fast, when I remember and so far this year I have not eaten meat on Ash Wednesday or any Fridays (given there has only been 2 Fridays so far).
Prior to the changes made by Pius XII and Paul VI, fasting and abstinence were more strictly regulated. The church had prescribed that Roman Catholics observe fasting and/or abstinence on a number of days throughout the year.
At work, I am forcing my lunch group to eat pizza for lunch every Friday so I can keep to my Lenten promise, to abstain from eating meat on Fridays. During Lent a person is to abstain from something, this year I just want to follow the Lenten fast so I am abstaining from eating meat on Fridays.
After a month and a half of eating pizza on Fridays, my work lunch group will never want to eat pizza again!!!
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ReplyDeleteAunt Maria - I removed your comment by accident, I was actually trying to open it to read. Sorry, still learning. - RC
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