We were required to fast for three hours before Holy Communion. As I was a small child, I was exempt from the stricter Lenten fast. Fish on Fridays was always the norm, however. Vatican II and its misapplications began to be made manifest while I was twelve years old, so I was never obliged to engage in the strict Lenten fast.
That was also the time when there was much upheaval and "dumbing down". I won't rehearse them all, but suffice it to say that when I rediscovered Church patrimony, I was by far not alone in lamenting the de facto disappearance of ascetical discipline. That lamentation, however, came with its own spiritual perils. Quite a few traditionalists, in their zeal for restoring Church disciplines, seem to make it a point of pride - and I do mean "pride" in the harmful sense of the word - to pursue rigor and to chide others for not conforming to their particular standards. In other words, sometimes the pendulum swings too much in the opposite direction.
A year or two ago, a well-known podcaster, during Holy Week, announced that he was going on a "black fast" for Holy Saturday. That is, he would eat no solid food nor take liquid nourishment. Then he challenged his listeners to do the same, to "not be wimps". Hmmm... Isn't that interesting, in light of today's Gospel, where Jesus exhorted His followers to fast and not to make their fasting manifest? Since when did a fast become an occasion for swaggering bravado?
Today, Ann Barnhardt, whom I do hold in respect, published an unfortunate piece regarding fasting. It is actually factually inaccurate. She states that "fasting means to not eat any food whatsoever". That's not how the Church has defined it - and I'm talking about the Church's definition for the past several hundred years, not just since Vatican II.
I am now going to post links to other sites so that I don't have to "reinvent the wheel", as it were.
- https://voxluci.com/catholic-fasting-rules-then-vs-now/
- https://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-of-lenten-fasting-how-to.html
- https://fatima.org/news-views/pasting-part-7-fasting-in-the-1900s-pre-vatican-ii/
Only for a short while was Ash Wednesday taken to be a day of total fast. The typical fast day in Lent was a meal after Vespers was prayed, with two smaller snacks (not summing to the regular meal) were permitted. No warm-blooded meats were to be consumed. The fast was binding on adults between the ages of 21 to 59 years, while abstinence bound those from 14 on up.
One might have certain convictions about their need to observe a more rigorous fast. That's fine. However, we dare not imagine that our convictions are somehow binding upon other Catholics.
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