Pænitemini

"Repent, and believe in the Gospel" [Mark 1:15]

This is the Lenten Embertide, a time to fast, to pray, to examine the state of our soul, to acknowledge our failings and to rein in poorly governed passions. It is a time to thank God for blessings received and to give alms that others may share in our blessings, for all that we have and all that we are, we have received in trust from our Maker to use in His service.

50 years ago this very day, Pope Paul VI abrogated the canonical requirement of Catholics to fast this week. Nevertheless, the need remains for every Christian to take up his cross, and follow his Saviour up a difficult path.

Food and Fasting

Dinners were our delight.  I have many happy memories of dinner-and-a-show with you.  I put on weight, this last decade, eating your delicious cooking.  Despite what I may have suggested on occasion, gluttony is not one of the seven cardinal virtues.  It made a different top seven list.

You knew better, of course. You could see the value of moderation. You didn't see the point of fasting, though. I didn't push the point, since the Church never asked you to fast (first because you were non-Catholic, later because you were over the age of 59). Perhaps I was embarrassed to mention that over-indulgence leaves one more vulnerable to sins of impurity. (I have noticed that yielding to anger can have that effect, too. Let one demon in, and he brings his friends and they have a party in your soul. Such houseguests are difficult to evict). Fasting has the opposite effect. Never fasting, you did not know that.

Now, my bodiless friend, you must fast until the resurrection.

I should have pointed out that the saints fasted, and their austerities drew them closer to God. Jesus fasted, too. I could have mentioned that just as grace before meals draws our thoughts to God, so too does fasting. Fasting clarifies our thinking and helps us to place God first. I hesitated to mention fasting as training in self-control, since I provided you with such a poor model of self-control, but there is that, too, and fasting, with prayer and alms-giving, are gifts that we can offer to God in reparation for our sins.

... but, as you said more than once, "blah, blah, blah..." You don't need opinions, you need prayers. So I pray:

Help us, O God, our Savior, and for the glory of Thy Name, O Lord, deliver us; and forgive us our sins for Thy Name's sake. Grant us the grace, I pray, to repent, to do penance, and to sin no more. O Holy Father, make us Thy true children, temperate, discerning good from evil, choosing the good and steady in Thy service.

Merciful God, strengthen us and teach us to rein in the impulses of our lower selves which do not honor Thee. Help us to resist temptation and to be more generous in doing good, until it becomes our nature to speak and act always according to Thy wisdom.

Saint Yvo Helori, Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us that we be freed from gluttony and all immoderate desires, so that we may be guided by reason and the Divine light in all that we do, glorifying God with our thoughts and actions. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fasting pre-Vatican II

Church law for Roman Catholics regarding fast and abstinence was changed by Pope Paul VI in 1966. But prior to that, the Pio-Benedictine Code of law had:

Canon 1251

§ 1. The law of fast prescribes that there be only one meal a day; but it does not forbid that a little bit [of food] be taken in the morning and in the evening, observing, nevertheless, the approved custom of places concerning the quantity and the quality of the food.
§ 2. It is not forbidden to mix meat and fish in the same meal; or to exchange the evening meal with lunch.

Canon 1252 (1983 CIC 1251)

§ 1. The law of abstinence only must be observed every [Friday].
§ 2. The law of abstinence together with fast must be observed every Ash [Wednesday], every [Friday and Saturday] of Lent, each of the [Ember] Days, and the vigils of the Pentecost, the Assumption of the God-bearer into heaven, All the (solemnities of) Saints, and the Nativity of the Lord.
§ 3. The law of fast only is to be observed on all the other days of Lent.
§ 4. On [Sundays] or feasts of precept, the law of abstinence or of abstinence and fast or a fast only ceases, except during Lent, nor is the vigil anticipated; likewise it ceases on Holy [Saturday] afternoon.

Fasting six days a week during lent? I had forgotten that fasting was so strict so recently.

To Fast Again

The ritual observance of dietary rules — fasting and abstinence from meat in Lent, and abstinence from meat and meat products every Friday, as well as the Eucharistic fast from midnight before the reception of Communion — were as much defining marks of Catholicism before the council as abstention from pork is a defining characteristic of Judaism. The Friday abstinence in particular was a focus of Catholic identity which transcended class and educational barriers, uniting “good” and “bad” Catholics in a single eloquent observance. Here was a universally recognized expression of Catholicism which was nothing to do with priests or authority.

But instead of seeing this as one of its greatest strengths, ...

[Read the rest of Eamon Duffy's article here.]

The article concludes:

The authoritarian narrowing of the tradition to, in essence, a body of doctrines to be believed and orders from above to be obeyed, was a decisive factor in desensitizing ordinary Catholics, clerical as well as lay, to the beauty and independent value of their inherited observances — matters over which no authority has or ought to have absolute control. The ordinary members of the Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches have a far less authoritarian mentality than Catholics, a far more widespread and lively sense of the richness of their traditions of prayer and practice, and a far more secure sense of ownership by the people of the symbols which provide continuity with the Christian past and guidance to its future.

The realization that perhaps too much was carelessly abandoned in the years after the council is now widespread — it is even something of an official view in the later years of the present pontificate — and has helped fuel sometimes scary projects for a restoration of “real Catholicism,” programs in which the vigorous exercise of authority from above looms very large. Such programs are at least as bad as the ills they seek to remedy. There are no quick fixes: tradition cannot be rebuilt to a neat program and by orders from Rome. Our shared past can only be excavated by shared endeavor, by a painful and constant process of reeducation and rediscovery; in that process, we start from where we are, not where we wish we had stayed. The Church cannot afford the pleasures and false securities of reaction. But that is not to say that in our march into the needs and opportunities of the twenty-first century we should not try once more to summon up some of the deeper resources of our own tradition, and try to rediscover within it once more some of the supports which helped our fathers and mothers to live the gospel. We could do worse than rededicate ourselves to the observance of fasting and abstinence.

~~~

I wonder which scary programs, "at least as bad as the ills they seek to remedy", Professor Duffy had in mind? Still, not a bad article.

The Lord's presence as comfort or torment

Nicholas just turned 6. I love this age; there are usually so many really wonderful questions and conversations. In Nicholas' case, he has to ponder something for a long time before he talks about it. And then he has to rehearse what he's going to say with himself. So, sometimes, at what might seem like an odd moment, he just bursts out with a question:

"Mommy, I think it's possible you can sin so much you never go to heaven, right?"

Deep breath...

One week ago in the Catholic Herald, Elizabeth Foss explained to her six year old son how different people can experience the loving embrace of God differently - for some it is comfort and joy, while for others it is a relentless fire from which they would flee, if there were any place to hide.