Lent, fasting, abstinence … What does the Church say?
What does the Church say about Lent, fasting and abstinence? The pilgrim answers your questions.
- Appeared in the 4th century, Lent was first of all a fast of forty days during which Christians took only one daily meal bread, vegetables and water, except Sundays. On Friday and Saturday saints, we didn’t eat anything. From the 12th century, the practice softened, first by authorizing patients to consume eggs, dairy products and fish.
- In 1917, the first canonical law code still asked for a forty -day fast, But now authorizes a full meal that can integrate meats and dairy products, and taking a little food morning and evening. Ashes Wednesday as well as on Fridays and Saturdays in Lent, this fast must also be abstinent: we do not consume meat.
- 1966: The Apostolic Constitution PaeniteminI reform penance in order to recall the first issue of conversion. From now on, we fast and we abstain from meat only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. For others Lent Fridays, a deprivation should be established (meat, alcohol, tobacco, etc.), or a more intense practice of prayer or charity.
- Even if these rules have been relaxed from Vatican II, the importance and obligation of penance remains anchored in Paenitemini : “Penance is a requirement for inner life (…) (which) cannot ignore an asceticism as physical. Our whole being must participate (…) in the religious act by which the creature recognizes the holiness and the majesty of God. »»
