Friday abstinence

By Father Richard L. Schamber|  The Catholic Compass  |  May/June 2022

Commenting on this very point in the light of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops states: “Friday should be in each week something of what Lent [the preparatory season leading up to Easter] is in the entire year. For this reason, we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of each Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of the Jesus Christ” (On Penance and Abstinence [Nov. 18, 1966], 23).

This practice of doing penance in any shape or form flows from the need to repent and seek forgiveness for personal and communal sins. It is not arbitrary. It is filled with a deep meaning rooted in the singular way God’s chosen ones were saved from their sins and made adopted sons and daughters of God. It is indicative of the way of Jesus: “Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat” (Jn 12, 24). Hence, penance is integral to a full Christian life lived according to the Spirit of the crucified and risen Lord.

The way of penance, abstinence and fasting are one means that the faithful have at their disposal to fulfill in themselves through a free response whatever is lacking in the mystical body of Christ, the Church (Col 1:24). It can also help them reignite their longing for the bridegroom until he comes again in glory (Mt 9:15). Additionally, it may lead to self-mastery over a desire for passing things. For this reason, the bishops, as successors of the apostles, are entrusted with the duty of ensuring that this most salutary sign and instrument of Christian existence is not forgotten amid the concerns of daily life. More to the point, because it is part of St. Peter’s first sermon (Acts 2:38), the bishops have an express obligation to bear witness to the fact “that all the faithful are required by divine law to do penance,” regardless of one’s personal motivations (On Penance and Abstinence, 1).

In Catholic cultures, Fridays have traditionally been a day to joyfully fulfill this divine precept. On these days, Catholics used to abstain from flesh meat and any other foods with meat. Fried foods were considered legitimate because the fat of animals was sometimes needed to cook non-meat foods; fat was also not considered “flesh” meat. This is why fish and Fridays have often been associated with Catholicism.

In the 1960s, the U.S. bishops made adaptations to the culture of penance on Fridays outside of Lent in the United States so that Catholics might live out the need to do penance in ways that are more fitting and appropriate in our contemporary western culture. Formerly, Catholics were obliged to abstain specifically from meat on all Fridays throughout the year “under pain of sin” (Ibid, 24). But because the conditions of contemporary culture have radically shifted, such that abstaining from flesh meat may not be particularly penitential – think about an exquisite lobster dinner – the bishops invited Catholics to find other ways of living out this divine call to do penance outside of Lent. They wanted to entrust it to one’s newfound freedom in Christ. For this reason, they encouraged the faithful to do any form of creditable penance, to lead a lifestyle becoming of the “new man in Christ” (2Cor 5:17), and to not neglect charitable work (On Penance and Abstinence, 27).

Even though Catholics in the U.S. are no longer obliged to abstain from meat on Fridays in Ordinary Time, Advent, the Christmas and Easter seasons under pain of sin, this does not mean that Catholics should not abstain or do another form of penance (Ibid, 24). The revealed need to do penance still stands. But the manner of practicing this divine directive outside of Lent is left to one’s personal discretion.