Can. 919 §1. A person who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before holy communion from any food and drink, except for only water and medicine.
The Eucharistic fast is very light. You could be eating while pulling into a parking space before Mass and still probably be fine.
Is there really no exception for pregnancy (or sickness, for that matter)? I know multiple women who, during preganncy (especially first trimester) either were unable to receive Communion because the little embryo decided that suddenly mom needs to eat, or who attempted the Eucharistic fast and ended up vomiting. The Eucharistic fast is very light if you're healthy and not pregnant, but not light absolutely.
Ah, I see you’ve never been pregnant ;) in my experience, when pregnant I am not able to keep the same boundaries with regard to when I stop eating/begin fasting before mass as I do when not pregnant. I also sometimes need to bring a water bottle to mass, which I otherwise would not do (though I recognize that water doesn’t break the fast!).
I’m enjoying getting all these notifications and being grateful that this year I am not pregnant (but also grateful that I AM nursing and therefore also not obligated to fast! So if any nursing mamas are reading… feed yourself, feed your baby :) and encourage your husband in HIS fast!
Pregnant or nursing Moms who need food should eat food as they need it, whenever they need it for their health and the health of their baby.
I’m a man.
Richard, you and I have no experience of all the many different issues of being pregnant. Therefore, it is not our business what a pregnant Mom needs to do. The same goes for a diabetic. Even if you are diabetic each person has their own needs.
In both cases whatever is necessary to keep healthy is what the Lord requires.
And a pregnant Mom should be seeing a doctor in any case.
There is, and has been for some time, an exception to the Eucharistic fast for those who are elderly or sick. While this does not include pregnancy in general it would certainly, in my mind, include those experiencing a difficult pregnancy and who need to eat something for that reason.
In this situation I would talk to my parish priest (an overlooked resource), and because my parish priest is always less hard on me than I am on myself, it would be a foregone conclusion that I would be told something both sensible and charitable that I could then consider "obedience" during any scruples flare-up in the next month. (Though if I felt queasy during the Liturgy of the Eucharist and was not feeling quite quite by the time the priest makes his communion, I would be inclined to stay in the pew, or to leave it only in the direction of the bathroom, for pragmatic reasons regardless of fast status.)
I remember seeing a Cardinal (Dolan, maybe?) talking about his Mom being pregnant pre-Vatican II. She was having issues and her doctor wanted her to eat more often, including during the more extensive eucharistic fast. The priest told her that was fine as long as she wasn't eating something super indulgent. I guess peanut butter crackers not chocolate cake.
All that sounds rather … complicated. I’ll deny myself alcohol, cigars and sweets (hit ‘em where it hurts, you know). Then, on THE sunday I‘ll have a cigar with the LOrd and praise HIm for that and mans other things. Go Judah!
I have heard the argument from clergy in the USA that if Friday abstaining becomes “law” people will not observe it and, therefore be caused to sin.
This is kind of like having “Ascension Sunday” because it might be too difficult to get to Mass on a Thursday. My other favorite piece of ridiculousness is if a holy day falls on a Monday the obligation doesn’t stand.
If one feels forced to abstain (where it is law) on all Fridays or constantly complains about it then don’t do it.
Unless sickness, age or pregnancy is involved, the attitude of “I have to” destroys the spirit of the practice.
We waste time on too many whinny questions and loopholes.
We do this out of love for the Lord and unite it to his sacrifice.
If one can’t offer this small sacrifice that’s a spiritual problem and I would encourage a person with this problem to seek help. If people ignore the rules in their country or region it is their problem not the Church’s problem.
Doesn't abstinence on Fridays still exist? (USA) It just doesn't have to be food, but it has to be something meaningful.
And I'm with you on the whole, "let's just add the observance to Sunday thing". Really? It's not that difficult. But then again I attend daily Mass anyway so maybe I'm not being pastoral.
I actually think observing Epiphany, Ascension, and the many Feasts of the Lord on Sundays (that are properly assigned to Sundays, for example, Corpus Christi) is such a good idea because it enables MORE people to experience them. Daily Mass goers are a wonderful sort and I never knew it until I became one myself. But I appreciate the Church making it easy for as many people as possible to participate in as many of the great feast days as possible.
Does everyone go to mass on HDO’s? No. Does everyone go to mass on Sunday’s? Also no.
Do you know what the best attended liturgies of the year happen to be? Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, All Saints… mostly feasts that are not Sundays.
Isn’t it beautiful that days like Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday draw people to the Church for an opportunity of encounter with the Lord? There was a time when I was super legalistic and judgy about this sort of thing. These days my hope and prayer is that more people will have the opportunity to encounter Christ, especially those who might be only hanging on to the faith by a thread. As for days like Holy Thursday, I can’t speak for all parishes, just the ones I’ve been part of. My observation is that the people who show up for those liturgies are the regular Mass goers of the parish, but it’s packed because there’s only one offered on the day.
I can understand moving Epihany, and frankly I’d be in favor of making even Christmas itself a feast moveable to Sunday, as neither of them has any particular reason to be celebrated on any particular date or day of the week.
But Jesus himself picked a Thursday to ascend to heaven, as recorded in scripture, so I rather feel like we should give his choice the benefit of the doubt. It’s clearly an exact forty days after Easter Sunday.
I do a traditional Lenten fast similar to Eastern Catholicism so I just have a little bit of plain bread (basically a collation of bread) as my one meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I do have black instant coffee though, i need it to function. Plain old bread is delicious when you are hungry.
The general Eastern custom is not so much about avoiding food ebut the types of food. The “strict fast” means no meat (gravies, sauces and soups made with meat are considered meat), eggs, dairy, wine and oil.
Most Eastern Catholic Churches have “watered” this practice down. The Orthodox generally keep this tradition, though it is not considered to be required under “pain of sin.” You do it because you choose to do it as part of your spiritual life.
It is not about how long you can go without eating.
Traditionally, in the East “fasting” is about abstinence from certain foods.
In practice it means eating only vegetables, fruits and breads made without dairy or oil.
As a vocational practice I fast every day except Sunday from the feast of the exaltation of the Cross to Easter Sunday (for me this is one meal, taken in the evening after I pray Evening Prayer, sufficient for the day's nutrition). I never eat flesh meat at any time and I never drink alcohol (I do not want these things, so it's not a sacrifice). During Lent I also eat no fish, dairy, eggs, or added sugar (I do eat fruit)--again, excepting Sundays. Excluding all oils hasn't seemed practical. Because I already fast and abstain, I do something different on the particular "fast days" in the calendar. That is the reason for eating only bread! I've read the Desert Fathers and I'm clearly not that--though it's the one time when I have their experience of living on bread. I'm also a Latin Catholic so I don't feel obliged by exact Eastern practices of course. Since what I do (though with advice of spiritual direction) is done because I choose and want to do that, I don't even assume there is virtue in it. It does however help me to have a better self control about food than I would otherwise have--and it makes it feel like Lent. In my opinion that feeling, not only in the mind but in the body, of it being Lent is what helps turn me to contrition and to God. Intimacy with God is what I'm craving. My eating habits are not something I've ever urged anyone else to do.
I'm over 60, can I sell my fasting to others? Not sell, ya know, but like let them have it count for them like "earning" indulgences for others? Or is that another example of not really understanding the purpose of the Lenten Fast?
You don't have to be over 60 to ask God to apply your fasting for some intention or individual.
I think the general idea during Lent is to use it to work on expiation, reparation, and impetration for our own favorite sins, but that doesn't exclude offering it up for others. We can offer any prayer, sacrifice, or almsgiving for ourselves or any other person.
Indulgences, if I remember right, can only be earned for ourselves or for the dead.
Fasting and abstinence is a wonderful basis for comedy and legalism. I remember the story about a 19th century English Cardinal whose idea of Friday fasting was to have five fish dishes.
And there was the priceless explanation of "one meal". Apparently eating for less than two hours constituted a meal. This might be a cunning way of inducing fasting, because the thought of eating for two hours makes me feel ill.
I'm reminded of that one lady who would go to the all-you-can-eat buffet at Golden Corral for lunch, eat, then sit at her table and read a book until it was time for dinner, when she would go back to the buffet line again, all without leaving the restaurant. "one (elongated) meal" right?
"It is strongly desired that bishops and all pastors of souls, in addition to the more frequent use of the sacrament of penance, promote with zeal, particularly during the Lenten season, extraordinary practices of penitence aimed at expiation and impetration." (Pope St. Paul VI, Paenitemini, IX.1)
Everybody always forgets these two VERY important caveats whenever we talk about exemptions/dispensations from fasting and abstinence:
-If you fall under a category that is exempted/dispensed from abstinence and/or fasting, you are exempted from the *requirement* only - the expectation is that you are *still* undertaking the abstinence and fasting as normal. The dispensation is *not a mandate to skip* the mortification, but merely allows for an option of prudential judgement without violating a precept under penalty of sin.
-If you do choose to not abstain or fast, you must replace the abstinence/fasting with another penitential mortification. (This is also the abstinence guideline in the US for all Fridays outside of Lent)
Those dispensations/exemptions are simply prudential options available for medical reasons; they are *not* wholesale "get out of penance free" card, as if some Christians are exempt from the basic fundamental universal Chrisian expectation for penance and offering mortifications.
It doesn't matter if you're 8 years old, or 80 years old, or pregnant, or nursing, or ill... you are still expected as a baseline to fast/abstain and/or undertake a penitential mortification.
I might be mistaken about this, but I have heard at least one very holy priest (not prone to laxity by any means) suggest that the condition preventing normative fasting and abstinence can be in and of itself sufficiently penitential and that one did not have to seek out anything additional. To be fair, he was addressing a group of women who were probably more inclined to scrupulosity than your average Catholic, but I have taken a lot of comfort over the years from the idea that I can offer up nausea, fatigue, sleepless nights of newborn care, etc. and that this is "enough."
It is certainly a good and pious thing to willingly and joyfully accept/offer up difficult things like the miscellaneous sacrifices that naturally arise in pregnancy/post-partum life with newborns (I get it, too - well, maybe not the pregnancy part!). But what is asked of Christians on days of fasting/abstinence is voluntary mortification, which necessarily implies the voluntary privation of some necessary good. The voluntary mortifications (fasting/abstinence/waking up earlier than normal/cold showers/etc.) help us to become more naturally predisposed to accepting with joyful oblation to God the involuntary mortifications (pregnancy aches and pains/chronic illness/the loneliness of living alone/etc.) we have no control over and don't have the luxury to choose. And everybody has some kind of involuntary mortification (including me, a few big ones tbh).
I don't want to cross a pious and devoted priest - and maybe it really was something he focused on overly-scrupulous moms. But I'd approach it differently from him, as I laid out here. Don't put one's self or others in danger (I don't want pregnant moms fainting and falling to the floor!), but the whole point of mortifications are that they are, in fact, neither naturally easy nor enjoyable.
I'd be interested in your take on whether pregnant women, subject to the vagaries of pregancy, are required to keep the Eucharistic fast.
Can. 919 §1. A person who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before holy communion from any food and drink, except for only water and medicine.
The Eucharistic fast is very light. You could be eating while pulling into a parking space before Mass and still probably be fine.
Is there really no exception for pregnancy (or sickness, for that matter)? I know multiple women who, during preganncy (especially first trimester) either were unable to receive Communion because the little embryo decided that suddenly mom needs to eat, or who attempted the Eucharistic fast and ended up vomiting. The Eucharistic fast is very light if you're healthy and not pregnant, but not light absolutely.
I think if someone can’t go an hour without eating they should probably see a doctor. Something isn’t right.
And then, anything for medicinal reasons fits in the law for the Eucharistic fast.
Ah, I see you’ve never been pregnant ;) in my experience, when pregnant I am not able to keep the same boundaries with regard to when I stop eating/begin fasting before mass as I do when not pregnant. I also sometimes need to bring a water bottle to mass, which I otherwise would not do (though I recognize that water doesn’t break the fast!).
I’m enjoying getting all these notifications and being grateful that this year I am not pregnant (but also grateful that I AM nursing and therefore also not obligated to fast! So if any nursing mamas are reading… feed yourself, feed your baby :) and encourage your husband in HIS fast!
Perfectly stated!
Pregnant or nursing Moms who need food should eat food as they need it, whenever they need it for their health and the health of their baby.
I’m a man.
Richard, you and I have no experience of all the many different issues of being pregnant. Therefore, it is not our business what a pregnant Mom needs to do. The same goes for a diabetic. Even if you are diabetic each person has their own needs.
In both cases whatever is necessary to keep healthy is what the Lord requires.
And a pregnant Mom should be seeing a doctor in any case.
There is, and has been for some time, an exception to the Eucharistic fast for those who are elderly or sick. While this does not include pregnancy in general it would certainly, in my mind, include those experiencing a difficult pregnancy and who need to eat something for that reason.
In this situation I would talk to my parish priest (an overlooked resource), and because my parish priest is always less hard on me than I am on myself, it would be a foregone conclusion that I would be told something both sensible and charitable that I could then consider "obedience" during any scruples flare-up in the next month. (Though if I felt queasy during the Liturgy of the Eucharist and was not feeling quite quite by the time the priest makes his communion, I would be inclined to stay in the pew, or to leave it only in the direction of the bathroom, for pragmatic reasons regardless of fast status.)
I remember seeing a Cardinal (Dolan, maybe?) talking about his Mom being pregnant pre-Vatican II. She was having issues and her doctor wanted her to eat more often, including during the more extensive eucharistic fast. The priest told her that was fine as long as she wasn't eating something super indulgent. I guess peanut butter crackers not chocolate cake.
All that sounds rather … complicated. I’ll deny myself alcohol, cigars and sweets (hit ‘em where it hurts, you know). Then, on THE sunday I‘ll have a cigar with the LOrd and praise HIm for that and mans other things. Go Judah!
Isn’t Ash Wednesday also a day of abstinence from meat?
Yes it is.
I see it has been corrected. Thank you, The Pillar!
Here in the UK abstinence is obligatory on all Fridays of the year, not just during Lent.
It was reinstated in 2011.
And as it could be here in the USA
I have heard the argument from clergy in the USA that if Friday abstaining becomes “law” people will not observe it and, therefore be caused to sin.
This is kind of like having “Ascension Sunday” because it might be too difficult to get to Mass on a Thursday. My other favorite piece of ridiculousness is if a holy day falls on a Monday the obligation doesn’t stand.
If one feels forced to abstain (where it is law) on all Fridays or constantly complains about it then don’t do it.
Unless sickness, age or pregnancy is involved, the attitude of “I have to” destroys the spirit of the practice.
We waste time on too many whinny questions and loopholes.
We do this out of love for the Lord and unite it to his sacrifice.
If one can’t offer this small sacrifice that’s a spiritual problem and I would encourage a person with this problem to seek help. If people ignore the rules in their country or region it is their problem not the Church’s problem.
Doesn't abstinence on Fridays still exist? (USA) It just doesn't have to be food, but it has to be something meaningful.
And I'm with you on the whole, "let's just add the observance to Sunday thing". Really? It's not that difficult. But then again I attend daily Mass anyway so maybe I'm not being pastoral.
I actually think observing Epiphany, Ascension, and the many Feasts of the Lord on Sundays (that are properly assigned to Sundays, for example, Corpus Christi) is such a good idea because it enables MORE people to experience them. Daily Mass goers are a wonderful sort and I never knew it until I became one myself. But I appreciate the Church making it easy for as many people as possible to participate in as many of the great feast days as possible.
Does everyone go to mass on HDO’s? No. Does everyone go to mass on Sunday’s? Also no.
Do you know what the best attended liturgies of the year happen to be? Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, All Saints… mostly feasts that are not Sundays.
Isn’t it beautiful that days like Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday draw people to the Church for an opportunity of encounter with the Lord? There was a time when I was super legalistic and judgy about this sort of thing. These days my hope and prayer is that more people will have the opportunity to encounter Christ, especially those who might be only hanging on to the faith by a thread. As for days like Holy Thursday, I can’t speak for all parishes, just the ones I’ve been part of. My observation is that the people who show up for those liturgies are the regular Mass goers of the parish, but it’s packed because there’s only one offered on the day.
I can understand moving Epihany, and frankly I’d be in favor of making even Christmas itself a feast moveable to Sunday, as neither of them has any particular reason to be celebrated on any particular date or day of the week.
But Jesus himself picked a Thursday to ascend to heaven, as recorded in scripture, so I rather feel like we should give his choice the benefit of the doubt. It’s clearly an exact forty days after Easter Sunday.
Huh? That's the first I have heard of it.
In England, or generally? I didn't know England reinstated it, although I think there were some countries where it was never removed.
I do a traditional Lenten fast similar to Eastern Catholicism so I just have a little bit of plain bread (basically a collation of bread) as my one meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I do have black instant coffee though, i need it to function. Plain old bread is delicious when you are hungry.
The general Eastern custom is not so much about avoiding food ebut the types of food. The “strict fast” means no meat (gravies, sauces and soups made with meat are considered meat), eggs, dairy, wine and oil.
Most Eastern Catholic Churches have “watered” this practice down. The Orthodox generally keep this tradition, though it is not considered to be required under “pain of sin.” You do it because you choose to do it as part of your spiritual life.
It is not about how long you can go without eating.
Traditionally, in the East “fasting” is about abstinence from certain foods.
In practice it means eating only vegetables, fruits and breads made without dairy or oil.
As a vocational practice I fast every day except Sunday from the feast of the exaltation of the Cross to Easter Sunday (for me this is one meal, taken in the evening after I pray Evening Prayer, sufficient for the day's nutrition). I never eat flesh meat at any time and I never drink alcohol (I do not want these things, so it's not a sacrifice). During Lent I also eat no fish, dairy, eggs, or added sugar (I do eat fruit)--again, excepting Sundays. Excluding all oils hasn't seemed practical. Because I already fast and abstain, I do something different on the particular "fast days" in the calendar. That is the reason for eating only bread! I've read the Desert Fathers and I'm clearly not that--though it's the one time when I have their experience of living on bread. I'm also a Latin Catholic so I don't feel obliged by exact Eastern practices of course. Since what I do (though with advice of spiritual direction) is done because I choose and want to do that, I don't even assume there is virtue in it. It does however help me to have a better self control about food than I would otherwise have--and it makes it feel like Lent. In my opinion that feeling, not only in the mind but in the body, of it being Lent is what helps turn me to contrition and to God. Intimacy with God is what I'm craving. My eating habits are not something I've ever urged anyone else to do.
Amen.
This sounds like the Rule of St. Albert (which the Carmelites observe).
By the way, fasting and abstinence during Lent doesn't just make Lent feel like Lent... it makes the feast of Easter feel like Easter!
I'm over 60, can I sell my fasting to others? Not sell, ya know, but like let them have it count for them like "earning" indulgences for others? Or is that another example of not really understanding the purpose of the Lenten Fast?
You don't have to be over 60 to ask God to apply your fasting for some intention or individual.
I think the general idea during Lent is to use it to work on expiation, reparation, and impetration for our own favorite sins, but that doesn't exclude offering it up for others. We can offer any prayer, sacrifice, or almsgiving for ourselves or any other person.
Indulgences, if I remember right, can only be earned for ourselves or for the dead.
Fasting and abstinence is a wonderful basis for comedy and legalism. I remember the story about a 19th century English Cardinal whose idea of Friday fasting was to have five fish dishes.
And there was the priceless explanation of "one meal". Apparently eating for less than two hours constituted a meal. This might be a cunning way of inducing fasting, because the thought of eating for two hours makes me feel ill.
I'm reminded of that one lady who would go to the all-you-can-eat buffet at Golden Corral for lunch, eat, then sit at her table and read a book until it was time for dinner, when she would go back to the buffet line again, all without leaving the restaurant. "one (elongated) meal" right?
I love America. Yeehaw.
"It is strongly desired that bishops and all pastors of souls, in addition to the more frequent use of the sacrament of penance, promote with zeal, particularly during the Lenten season, extraordinary practices of penitence aimed at expiation and impetration." (Pope St. Paul VI, Paenitemini, IX.1)
Be extraordinary.
Everybody always forgets these two VERY important caveats whenever we talk about exemptions/dispensations from fasting and abstinence:
-If you fall under a category that is exempted/dispensed from abstinence and/or fasting, you are exempted from the *requirement* only - the expectation is that you are *still* undertaking the abstinence and fasting as normal. The dispensation is *not a mandate to skip* the mortification, but merely allows for an option of prudential judgement without violating a precept under penalty of sin.
-If you do choose to not abstain or fast, you must replace the abstinence/fasting with another penitential mortification. (This is also the abstinence guideline in the US for all Fridays outside of Lent)
Those dispensations/exemptions are simply prudential options available for medical reasons; they are *not* wholesale "get out of penance free" card, as if some Christians are exempt from the basic fundamental universal Chrisian expectation for penance and offering mortifications.
It doesn't matter if you're 8 years old, or 80 years old, or pregnant, or nursing, or ill... you are still expected as a baseline to fast/abstain and/or undertake a penitential mortification.
I might be mistaken about this, but I have heard at least one very holy priest (not prone to laxity by any means) suggest that the condition preventing normative fasting and abstinence can be in and of itself sufficiently penitential and that one did not have to seek out anything additional. To be fair, he was addressing a group of women who were probably more inclined to scrupulosity than your average Catholic, but I have taken a lot of comfort over the years from the idea that I can offer up nausea, fatigue, sleepless nights of newborn care, etc. and that this is "enough."
It is certainly a good and pious thing to willingly and joyfully accept/offer up difficult things like the miscellaneous sacrifices that naturally arise in pregnancy/post-partum life with newborns (I get it, too - well, maybe not the pregnancy part!). But what is asked of Christians on days of fasting/abstinence is voluntary mortification, which necessarily implies the voluntary privation of some necessary good. The voluntary mortifications (fasting/abstinence/waking up earlier than normal/cold showers/etc.) help us to become more naturally predisposed to accepting with joyful oblation to God the involuntary mortifications (pregnancy aches and pains/chronic illness/the loneliness of living alone/etc.) we have no control over and don't have the luxury to choose. And everybody has some kind of involuntary mortification (including me, a few big ones tbh).
I don't want to cross a pious and devoted priest - and maybe it really was something he focused on overly-scrupulous moms. But I'd approach it differently from him, as I laid out here. Don't put one's self or others in danger (I don't want pregnant moms fainting and falling to the floor!), but the whole point of mortifications are that they are, in fact, neither naturally easy nor enjoyable.
I agree with you on the whole, however don’t think it does apply to children under the required age.
How much peanut butter can one eat with an apple before it is considered a meal?
Asking for a friend.
...
Me. Asking for me. *cough*