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A Question about Lent - 2/26/2009 6:37:47 PM

MasterG2kTR

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Since it's that time of year again. I have always wondered.....why can't (or at least shouldn't) catholics eat meat on friday during lent? Where and when did this edict begin? What is the penalty/consequence if you do eat meat?

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RE: A Question about Lent - 2/26/2009 6:47:06 PM

aravain

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~fr~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent#Fasting_and_abstinence

quote:

During the early Middle Ages, meat, eggs and dairy products were generally proscribed. Thomas Aquinas argued that "they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust."[8]

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RE: A Question about Lent - 2/26/2009 7:33:20 PM

Aylee

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

Since it's that time of year again. I have always wondered.....why can't (or at least shouldn't) catholics eat meat on friday during lent? Where and when did this edict begin? What is the penalty/consequence if you do eat meat?

Think of the harvest cycle. The Lenten period is the time when all the new animals are being born, so there is no hunting or slaughtering. (It used to be that you did not eat ANY meat during Lent.) Fish were allowed because they do not follow those same cycles, by and large. Also this is the period of time when you would want to use up all of your old grain and vegetables and such to clean the storage space out and have it ready for when the new stuff is harvested.

It is really an agricultural and animal husbandry issue.

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RE: A Question about Lent - 2/26/2009 7:58:13 PM

Vendaval

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Fasting for 40 days during Lent goes back to the 5th century. If you want an in-depth explanation here is an excerpt and link to the Online Catholic Encyclopedia entry.

Lent

"Other mitigations of an even more substantial character have been introduced into lenten observance in the course of the last few centuries. To begin with, the custom has been tolerated of taking a cup of liquid (e.g., tea or coffee, or even chocolate) with a fragment of bread or toast in the early morning. But, what more particularly regards Lent, successive indults have been granted by the Holy See allowing meat at the principal meal, first on Sundays, and then on two, three, four, and five weekdays, throughout nearly the whole of Lent. Quite recently, Maundy Thursday , upon which meat was hitherto always forbidden, has come to share in the same indulgence. In the United States, the Holy See grants faculties whereby working men and their families may use flesh meat once a day throughout the year, except Fridays, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, and the vigil of Christmas. The only compensation imposed for all these mitigations is the prohibition during Lent against partaking of both fish and flesh at the same repast."

http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=7007

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