Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church observes the disciplines of fasting and abstinence at various times each year. For Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one's intake of food, while abstinence refers to refraining from something that is good, and not inherently sinful, such as meat. The Catholic Church teaches that all people are obliged by God to perform some penance for their sins, and that these acts of penance are both personal and corporeal. Bodily fasting is meaningless unless it is joined with a spiritual avoidance of sin.
Canon law in force
Latin Church
Contemporary canonical legislation for Catholics of the Latin Church sui juris is rooted in the 1966 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, Paenitemini, and codified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. According to Paenitemini, the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and where possible, throughout Holy Saturday, both abstinence and fasting are required of Catholics who are not exempted for various reasons. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority until the beginning of the sixtieth year. At that age, a person is automatically excused from the requirement to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but, if health permits, may participate in the fast should they choose to do so. According to canon 1252 of the Code of Canon Law, all Latin Church Catholics are required to observe the laws of abstinence starting at the age of 14, and according to that, "even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance".Furthermore, all Fridays of the year, except when a Solemnity falls upon the Friday, are bound by the law of abstinence.
Both Paenitemini and the 1983 Code of Canon Law permitted the Episcopal Conferences to propose adjustments of the laws on fasting and abstinence for their home territories. In some countries, the Bishops' Conferences have obtained from Rome the substitution of pious or charitable acts for abstinence from meat on Fridays except Good Friday. Others abstain from eating meat on Lenten Fridays.
The Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans reconciled to the Catholic Church follow the discipline of the Latin Church including the norms established by the Council of Catholic Bishops in whose territories they are erected and of which their Ordinaries are members. Thus, for example, in England, the norm is abstinence on all Fridays of the year. The bishop in the United States has emphasized the statements in the USCCB norms "Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year", and "we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat." The Ember Days have been re-established in the Calendar of the Ordinariates, and as long as a Solemnity does not take precedence, the Ember Fridays in September and Advent are days of obligatory abstinence. Obligatory abstinence on Ember Friday in Lent is included in the universal Lenten discipline, and abstinence on Ember Friday on Whitsuntide is not required, as all days of the Octave of Pentecost are Solemnities.
Eastern Catholic Churches
Members of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches are obliged to follow the discipline of their own particular church. While some Eastern Catholics try to follow the stricter rules of their Orthodox counterparts, the actual canonical obligations of Eastern Catholics to fast and abstain are usually much more lenient than those of the Orthodox.Eastern Christians view fasting as one part of repentance and supporting a spiritual change of heart. Eastern Christians observe two major times of fasting, the "Great Fast" before Easter, and "Phillip's Fast" before the Nativity. The fast period before Christmas is called Philip's Fast because it begins after the feast day of St. Philip. Specific practices vary, but on some days during the week meat, dairy products and oil are avoided, while on other days there is no restriction. During approximately the last week before the Nativity, typically meat, dairy, eggs and oil are avoided on all days, meals are moderate in quantity, and no food is taken between meals.
Western practice
History
Rules relating to fasting pertain to the quantity of food allowed on days of fasting, while those regulating abstinence refer to the quality or type of food. The Christian tradition of fasts and abstinence developed from Old Testament practices, and were an integral part of the early church community. Louis Duchesne asserts, based on a verse in Luke 18, that Monday and Thursday were days of fasting among pious Jews. Early Christians practiced regular weekly fasts on Wednesdays and on Fridays. The early Christian form is known as the Black Fast: "eating only once a day, toward evening; nothing else except a little water was taken all day". This was the normative way of Christian fasting prior to the 8th century A.D. and is still kept by some of the faithful to this day, especially during Lent.There has always been a close connection between fasting and almsgiving; the money saved on food should be given to the poor.
Lent
The habit of fasting before Easter developed gradually, and with considerable diversity of practice regarding duration. As late as the latter part of the second century there were differing opinions not only regarding the manner of the paschal fast, but also the proper time for keeping Easter. In 331, St. Athanasius enjoined upon his flock a period of forty days of fasting preliminary to, but not inclusive of, the stricter fast of Holy Week, and in 339, after having traveled to Rome and over the greater part of Europe, wrote in the strongest terms to urge this observance upon the people of Alexandria as one that was universally practiced, "to the end that while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not fast but take our pleasure in those days".In the time of Gregory the Great, there were apparently at Rome six weeks of six days each, making thirty-six fast days in all, which St. Gregory, who is followed therein by many medieval writers, describes as the spiritual tithing of the year, thirty-six days being approximately the tenth part of three hundred and sixty-five. At a later date the wish to realize the exact number of forty days led to the practice of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday.
Early fasting practices were varied, but by the time of Gregory the Great, the ordinary rule on all fasting days was to take one meal a day and that in the evening ; and to abstain from meat of all sorts, white meats, eggs, and, in the early centuries, wine and oil. Consumption of fish and shellfish was usually, but not universally, allowed. Such a strict fast is sometimes called a Black Fast.
While early sources place the meal after sunset, by the 10th century or earlier, the custom prevailed of taking the only meal of the day at the ninth hour. By the 14th century, the one meal of the day had become a midday meal; and the liturgical observance of the nona hora had become tied to the daily Mass and other morning services, always said before noon. In tandem with those developments, the practice of having an evening collation became common. A morning collation was introduced in the early 19th century. Throughout these same centuries, there was wide disagreement over the appropriateness of white meats on fasting days, often resulting in various indulgences allowing the consumption of milk, butter, and cheese and, less commonly, eggs.
In the early 20th century, Church law prescribed fasting throughout Lent, with abstinence on Friday and Saturday. Some countries received dispensations: Rome in 1918 allowed the bishops of Ireland to transfer the Saturday obligation to Wednesday; in the United States, abstinence was not required on Saturday. The other weekdays were called days of "fasting without abstinence." A similar practice was called "partial abstinence", which allowed meat once during the day at the main meal. There is nothing in current Catholic Canon Law which corresponds to "partial abstinence". The countries of the former Spanish empire also had their own extensive dispensations from the rules of fasting and abstinence, based on the "Crusader privileges" of the Spanish dominions as codified in the Bull of the Crusade. In some European colonies, the obligation to fast and abstain differed by race, with indigenous persons often having more lenient rules than European colonists and their descendants or mestizos.
While the rules of abstinence generally only allow seafood, there are a few exceptions. In parts of South America, capybara meat is popular during Lent and Holy Week; in response to a question posed by French settlers in Quebec in the 17th century, beaver was classified as an exception, as it classified the swimming creature with fish. Similarly unusual classifications of "fish" for fur traders near Detroit have led to a local tradition of eating muskrat during Lent. The Archbishop of New Orleans said that "alligator is considered in the fish family" in 2010. The legal basis for the classification of capybara, beaver, and muskrat as fish probably rests with the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which bases animal classification as much on habit as anatomy.
Besides Lent, there are other penitential times customarily accompanied by fasting or abstinence. These include Advent, the Ember Days, the Rogation Days, Fridays throughout the year, and vigils of some of the important feast days.
Advent is considered a time of special self-examination, humility, and spiritual preparation in anticipation of the birth of Christ. Fridays and Saturdays in Advent were days of abstinence, and until early in the 20th century, the Fridays of Advent were also days of fasting.
The vigils observed included the Saturday before Pentecost, October 31, December 24, December 7 and August 14. These vigils all required fasting; some also required abstinence. If any of these fell on a Sunday, the vigil, but not the obligation of fasting, was moved to the Saturday before. Some other liturgical days were also known as vigils but neither fasting nor abstinence was required, particularly the vigils of feasts of the Apostles and the Vigil of the Epiphany. By 1959 in the United States, the fast for the vigil of Christmas was moved to December 23.
Ember days occurred four times a year. The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of the ember week were days of fast and abstinence, though the Wednesday and Saturday were often only days of partial abstinence. In addition, Catholics were required to abstain from meat on all other Fridays, unless the Friday coincided with a holy day of obligation.
The former regulations on abstinence obliged Catholics starting as young as age seven, but there were many exceptions. Large classes of people were considered exempt from fasting and abstinence, not only the sick and those with physically demanding jobs, but also people traveling and students.
On the eve of Vatican II, fasting and abstinence requirements in numerous Catholic countries were already greatly relaxed compared to the beginning of the 20th century, with fasting often reduced to four days of the year; Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, the vigil of Christmas or the day before, and the vigil either of the Immaculate Conception or of the Assumption.