Forty is Here! - Part 2

In the first installment of this post I provided some history of how the Lenten practices of the Church started.  At the end of that post I wrote about the importance of the practice of new Christians spending time in prayer and fasting for the last weeks before joining the Church at Easter and how the community joined with them in that time of special prayer.

 

As the practice of sacramental reconciliation (penance) developed, penitents followed some of the same practices as candidates for initiation. In fact, penance was called a “second baptism,” so the period before Easter became a time for these people to repeat the kind of intense prayer and fasting that they had carried out when they first joined the Church.

 

As the years went along, this time before Easter came to be identified with Jesus’ own forty days spent praying and fasting in the desert before he began his ministry, and every able-bodied member of the community shared in the preparation time that had once been reserved for candidates for initiation and penitents. As in the ancient practical form of late winter-early spring fasting, fasting and abstinence (not eating meat) was reserved to adults; children younger than fourteen and older people were freed from the obligation to fast and abstain.

 

Not too much of these ancient practices remains today, but there is enough to remind us of ancient practices and to invite us into a time of focused prayer and personal and communal renewal. Lent today is about forty days long, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending with the Evening Mass on Holy Thursday. (There is a special fast day on Good Friday, because it commemorates the day on which Jesus died, and people are encouraged to keep Holy Saturday as a quiet and prayerful time as well.)

Fasting and abstinence are no longer quite as necessary to get the community through the winter and to the next harvest, but they are an important reminder of the hunger that still exists in the world and of the hunger in our own hearts for what is important.

 

Here’s what we’re asked to do: Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday if they are healthy enough to do it. In addition, all Catholics 14 years old and older must abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all the Fridays of Lent.

 

Fasting, as explained by the U.S. bishops, means only one full meal on the fast day. Some food (not equaling another full meal) is permitted at breakfast and around midday or in the evening—depending on when a person chooses to eat the main or full meal.

 

Abstinence forbids eating meat but not eggs, milk products, or condiments made of animal fat. So foods like chicken broth, consommé, soups cooked or flavored with meat, meat gravies or sauces, as well as seasonings or condiments made from animal fat are not forbidden. So it is permissible to use margarine and lard. Even bacon drippings which contain little bits of meat may be poured over lettuce as seasoning.

 

Now, for most people, these demands aren’t especially hard, but they’re reminders that we’re in this time of preparation and renewal. They’re also reminders of what we should always be aware of—that there are people around us suffering, hungry, homeless, in pain who are always in need of our help and our prayers.

Lenten Peace!!

Gordon Truitt