I understand that Canon law requires us to abstain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Why was this changed or amended from not eating meat on any Friday, and what is the biblical (not canonical) reasoning behind this? I’m trying to explain this to a non-Catholic and I’m having a very difficult time finding a Biblical reason behind this.

Please help! 

Thank you,

Barry Hongaree,

Very simple. In Matthew 6:16 Jesus did not say "if you fast..." He said "when you fast..." Fasting is expected of us by the Lord. In Mark 2:19-20,  Jesus tells the Pharisees that the disciples will fast when the bridegroom is taken away. For the Catholic, every Friday is Good Friday and every Sunday is Easter. We remember the Lord's "being taken away" by fasting and repenting every Friday, but especially in Lent. Those are some of the Biblical reasons. Further on, I’ll have more. However, if you are reading your Code of Canon Law, which surely you keep on the night stand, you will find that we are still expected to do penance on Fridays and the usual penance is to abstain from meat. The Church now allows a little more leeway and we can be more flexible in our penance, but penance is still required of us because the Lord requires it in the Sacred Tradition and the Bible. The usual penance is still the meatless Friday. Surprise! However, on a Friday during the year you needn’t embarrass your heathen friends who have invited you to dinner by refusing to eat the duck livers in pomegranate sauces that have been slaved over all afternoon.  Be polite. Eat it and say the Rosary as another form of penance in the ambulance on the way to have your stomach pumped as another form of penance, or say no to the bicarbonate of soda and Tums they offer you for dessert. Except in Lent. No meat on Ash Wednesday or Fridays during Lent even to be polite.

Also the traditional Lenten and Advent fasts are good things too, though not specifically required, except on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. In the traditional fast, we used to eat meat only once a day (except of course on Friday; no meat AT ALL.) We could eat meat at the main meal, and the other two meals together weren’t supposed to make up a whole regular meal. We ate nothing in between meals. Penance is required, both by the Bible and the Sacred Tradition but not  this specific penance, though it’s still allowed and I highly recommend it.

You may think, “Why bother?  It seems like such a wussy little fast. Now Ramadan there’s a fast! No water or food, sun up to sun down for a month! If you want to impress God, now that’s the way to do it.” Fasting is not about impressing God. It’s about resisting the devil! Yes, we still believe there is a devil, in fact there’s a bunch of them and they go about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour (1Peter 5:8) I had a good friend who was an exorcist. Yes you heard me, an exorcist. We are no longer in touch, so do not call me to see if I can cast an evil spirit out of your mother-in-law. I am not an exorcist, and my exorcist friend and I are no longer in touch. (He has found another, less stressful job anyway.)  I was amazed to find one of the most important prayers in the exorcism is the Creed. The exorcist explained that what really goes on in a possession is that the devil is a devourer. He devours his victim’s will. C.S. Lewis put it this way, the stronger will devouring the weaker will. It’s like this, he said, “Picture a big house with the owner tied up, locked in a closet in the basement.  The exorcist is just helping the poor victim to get free by exercising his will, the will, the decision, to trust God.”  When we say in the Creed that I believe in one God, the word “believe” has the sense of “trust.” It is not a statement of fact, saying that I am of the opinion that there is a triune God. It is a statement of intention. I will to trust that triune God, not myself, not the devil, not the world, nor the flesh. Fasting is an important part of our struggle against the devil, because it is an exercise of freedom.

Modern people are a mess because they believe that freedom is getting and doing what they want. True freedom is the exercise of the will against force, and the greatest force is the force of my own passions and asperities. The regular use of the word “no” when said to my own desires and appetites is a powerful workout for the soul. Most of us assume that freedom is getting what we want. Freedom is the exercise of the will. It is the ability not to make choices, but to make decisions. Aren’t they the same thing? Not at all! How often have I decided to lose a little weight and eat healthy? As often as not, the end of the day finds me in a Lazy Boy recliner with a bag of Cheetos. I may think that’s freedom, but the truth is I’m a slave to artificial cheese flavoring combined with grease and salt. I didn’t really decide to eat the Cheetos. They sort of grabbed me when I walked by the kitchen cupboard. They own me. I didn’t exercise freedom in eating them.  I got ambushed! Fasting is an exercise in freedom. Giving in to my appetites is an experience of slavery. The purpose of fasting isn’t to get what we want from God. It’s not as if God is going to hear our stomach growling and feel sorry for us. But the devil may hear our stomachs growling and be afraid of us!  That’s why Jesus’ fasting in the desert is the prelude to His temptations. The devil wanted to break Him, but He had already put the devil to flight by an exercise of His will.

So Barry, fasting is an act of freedom, and it is a shame that there are so few free people in this “land of the free.”

As for your Biblical friend, ask him if he honors the Blessed Mother as he is commanded to in Luke 1, 47 and ask him when 's the last time he chewed the Lord's flesh? In John 6, 53, that is the verb used, chew, not just eat. If he hasn't eaten and chewed the Lord's flesh he has no life in him. He'll probably say that the Bible is the Lord's flesh, or some such allegory. Nonsense, The Bible says it. The Church confirms it. That settles it. You see, the Catholic faith is really much more Biblical than the Protestant and Non-Denominational denominations.

Yours as ever,

Rev. Know-It-All