During the Lenten season, we have the opportunity to renew our appreciation of the Cross, to bring the Cross of Christ to the forefront of our minds and hearts. Catholics prepare for the celebration of Easter through three disciplines: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.
By Dr. Joan M. Kelly
"The Cross is the identifying symbol of Christianity,” St. Paul said. “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:19). But how shocking it is to Christian ears today to hear that more people in the world readily recognize the significance of McDonald’s golden arches than they do the Cross of Christ. Incredible!
During the Lenten season, we have the opportunity to renew our appreciation of the Cross, to bring the Cross of Christ to the forefront of our minds and hearts. Catholics prepare for the celebration of Easter through three disciplines: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.
REMINDER: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence. The norms on fasting are obligatory for ages 18-59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding from age 14 onwards.
Catholics of a more mature age can recall that, up to 1966, all Fridays throughout the year were days of abstinence. No meat allowed! Fish on Friday was our badge of solidarity as we joined with other Catholics in sacrificing meat. Our sacrifice reminded us of the sacrifice of Christ who suffered and died on the Cross for our salvation: “God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son” (Jn 3:16).
Fish code
The substitution of fish on Friday can be steeped in religious and historical symbolism. During the times of persecution, Christians used many secret signs and codes to show that they believed in Jesus Christ. One of these signs was the fish. Fish can only be found in fresh or living waters. And Christians are brought to share in the life of Christ through the living waters of Baptism. When early Christians saw a drawing of a fish, they knew other Christians were nearby.
Most people in the early Church spoke or understood Greek, too. The Greek word for fish is ichthus, consisting of the initial letters of Iesous, Christos, Theou, Uios, Soter – Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior. In the Gospel of Luke (5:10), the Apostles are characterized as “Fishers of Men.”
The original Christians were Jewish and were accustomed to fasting and abstaining on specific days as a form of spiritual discipline. They moved these penitential days, however, to Wednesdays and Fridays because Judas engineered Jesus’ arrest on a Wednesday (Spy Wednesday) and Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior, was crucified on a Friday. Their fast often took the form of abstaining from meat in the diet as well.
Vatican II
Up to the Second Vatican Council, Catholics were obliged to abstain from meat every Friday of the year, as well as fast on all 40 days of Lent. Vatican II, as we know, ushered in many changes affecting Catholic life and practices.
On February 17, 1966, Pope St. Paul VI issued the Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, in which the canonical forms of fasting and abstinence were modified. The meaning of fast and abstinence was emphasized and the obligation was restated. However, the extent of the obligation was changed with specific regulations left to bishops in their respective territorial episcopal conferences.
The following November, the bishops of the United States rescinded the year-round obligatory abstention from meat on Fridays. What? We could eat meat on Fridays? Shock waves reverberated among Catholics throughout the country. No more fish on Friday! Even the proprietors of restaurants and those engaged in the fishing industry contributed to the clamor.
Not off the hook
But Catholics were not entirely, as some would say, “off the hook.” Overlooked by most amid all the hoopla was the strong recommendation of the U.S. bishops that Catholics, nonetheless, maintain the sacredness of every Friday throughout the year through acts of charity or special devotions.
The bishops’ sentiments are echoed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (canons 1250-1253). “All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the Universal Church,” the Code states. “It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute, in whole or in part for fast and abstinence, other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.”
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