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Something
you need to know about Fridays
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
An invitation to attend a Friday dinner-meeting provides a context for
my comments this week. It was to be a Catholic event. A plated meal
rather than buffet, the menu obviously was prepared with significant
thought: prime rib or medallion of pork loin, roasted red-skin potato,
honey glazed baby carrots, and creamy layered cake. It sounds delicious.
There was just one problem. The meal was scheduled for a Friday.
Older folks will remember that in years past Fridays were meatless for
Catholics. It was one of the identifying marks that distinguished
Catholics from their neighbors. To deliberately eat meat on Friday was
considered a mortal sin. Only the most hard-hearted even entertained the
idea of violating meatless Fridays. Everyone understood the seriousness
of it. Families, Catholic as well as non-Catholic, made provision for
meatless meals if Catholics were invited to their table.
The Fridays of Lent are meatless, of course. That fact is well
publicized each year at the beginning of the Lenten Season. But most
seem to have forgotten something of importance. All Fridays are
considered penitential. The traditional way to observe Fridays as days
of penance is to go meatless. It isn’t the exclusive way, but it’s held
up as part of the call to penance.
This call for Friday abstinence from meat is rooted in a basic teaching
of our Church. That teaching is that as Christian faithful we are bound
to do penance. It is considered a matter of divine law. It is for that
reason that certain penitential days are prescribed. On those days
Catholics are called to pray, exercise works of piety and charity, and
deny themselves by fulfilling their responsibilities more faithfully.
Traditionally these days have been devoted to fast and abstinence.
Fasting and abstinence from meat are concrete. They are black and white.
They leave no doubt that the day is special. The point is that Catholics
are to develop an authentic sense of penance. This, of course, is
foreign to the culture in which we find ourselves. It is nonetheless
part and parcel of our religious tradition.
According to the Code of Canon (Canons 1249-1253) the Universal Church
designates as penitential days all Fridays of the year that are not
solemnities. However, Pope Paul VI delegated to National Conferences of
Bishops the authority to adapt this Universal Law. Accordingly in 1966
the Bishops of the United States determined that in their jurisdiction
abstinence from meat would be obligatory only on the Fridays of Lent and
Ash Wednesday. At the same time they strongly recommended that
abstinence be observed on all Fridays of the year as the privileged and
traditional way of commemorating the days of the Lord’s passion and
death. In other words, it would no longer be a sin to eat meat on Friday
but abstinence remained a strong recommendation.
As so often happens people didn’t hear the entire message. The media
announced that Fridays would no longer be meatless for Catholics. The
part about keeping Fridays as days of penance was soon overlooked. Few
caught that abstinence from meat was strongly recommended. It wasn’t
long before the penitential nature of Fridays all but disappeared.
It should be noted that the Catholic Church considers her tradition of
fast and abstinence to be a positive discipline. The motivation is not
to deny the goodness of creation or to punish the body, but to unite the
believer through the discipline of self-sacrifice to the sacrificial
love of Christ and to free the person from self-centeredness. When this
happens, quality prayer and generous charity are more easily
forthcoming.
The present canonical legislation presents minimal requirements. It is
left up to each Catholic to make a conscientious decision about a
program of penance that goes beyond the minimal requirements and takes
account of age, health, employment and family responsibilities. The Code
of Canon Law instructs that “pastors and parents are to see to it that
minors who are not bound to the law…are educated in an authentic sense
of penance” (Canon 1252). I think it can be said that as a
generalization that directive has become lost in a culture which finds
the concept of penance outdated.
Some have stayed the course, however. The penance connected with
meatless Fridays, for us, is rooted more in the difficulties we find in
being sensitive to those who don’t have a clue about the value of
meatless Fridays than any desire for meat. Given the numerous meal
options these days, one survives, but it is challenging. It is
especially so when attending “Catholic events” on a Friday. Not everyone
digs into meat, I am sure. It only seems that way. When no option is
offered to meat one hopes vegetables will be plentiful.
Back in 1983 the Bishops of the United States issued a Pastoral Letter
on War and Peace. Titled The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and
Our Response, it laid out the “mind of the Church” on the morality
of war with specific focus on nuclear weapons. In that document it was
noted that prayer by itself is incomplete without penance. “Penance
directs us toward our goal of putting on the attitudes of Jesus Christ
Himself. Because we are all capable of violence, we are never totally
conformed to Christ and are always in need of conversion” (297). It went
on to say that there is a continual need of acts of penance and
conversion. This was then added: “as a tangible sign of our need and
desire to do penance we (Bishops), for the cause of peace, commit
ourselves to fast and abstain on each Friday of the year. We call upon
our people voluntarily to do penance on Friday by eating less food and
abstaining from meat. This return to a traditional practice of penance,
once well observe in the U. S. Church, should be accompanied by works of
charity and service toward our neighbors. Each Friday should be a day
significantly devoted to prayer, penance, and almsgiving for peace”
(298).
My predecessor, Bishop George Fulcher, was a member of the writing
committee for the Peace Pastoral. That committee was chaired by the late
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. Perhaps my admiration for Bishop Fulcher and
my connection with him has kept my attention focused on that 1983
pledge. Yet, it could be said that is somewhat irrelevant. Relevant is
the call we all receive in our baptism to develop a sense of penance. An
authentic sense of penance can be expressed in various ways. Not to be
overlooked, however, is the need for penance and the fact that Scripture
and the tradition of our Church holds up abstinence from meat on Fridays
as one of the premier ways we maintain that sense of penance.
If you are a meatless Friday Catholic, congratulations. If you are not,
I respectfully suggest you ask yourself what you are doing to observe
Friday as a day of penance. It’s something to think about. |
