First, I commend Bricker on another excellent SDSAB article.
My wife, who could now be considered a lapsed Catholic, had been under the impression that seafood was allowed during Lent for a different reason. Supposedly when the fasting tradition began, seafood (or fish, at least) was considered a common meal (after all, several of the Apostles were fishermen), especially compared to red meat such as beef, and thus it was the more expensive “luxury” that was prohibited rather than the common staple.
Now, of course, beef is much more common and fish, and certainly shrimp or lobster, is often seen as a luxury, but the original prohibition remains, meaning Catholics can go out and eat all the expensive seafood they want on Fridays during Lent, thus absolving them of any real sacrifice.
Bricker’s SDSTAFF report, of course, certainly puts the kibosh on that notion, since apparently the prohibition “dividing line” was scriptural in origin rather than practical.
I still think, though, that modern practice is bordering on absurd. “Oh, it’s Friday, so we have to abstain from meat; let’s go to Red Lobster!”
Powers &8^]
I can’t believe this - an article on Lenten fasting without a single mention of Orthodox Christian practice? We Orthodox still fast according to the early church - abstaining from meat, fish, dairy and oil on Wednesdays and Fridays and fasting to various degrees of severity on the 4 great fasting periods of the year - the two longest (Nativity and Pascha Fasts) lasting 40 days. I can only imagine the omission of any reference to Orthodoxy is the result of ignorance or deliberate snubbing.
Of course, we’re ALL about promoting ignorance and gratuitous offense here. It couldn’t be anything to do with that the original question explicitly requested us to “shed some light on the current Catholic tradition of not eating meat on Fridays during Lent”.
Of course, I realize that - but surely Orthodox practice could receive SOME mention in the several paragraphs of backstory since its more than tangentially related to the topic.
It is worth noting that the obligation to abstain from eating meat on the other Fridays of Lent does not apply if a solemnity occurs on the Friday. With two solemnities of the universal church (Saint Joseph on 19 March and the Annunciation on 25 March) generally falling in Lent, this is not all that unusual. In some countries/dioceses, it is even more likely since Saint Patrick (17 March) is also classed as a solemnity.
What I find amusing is the assumption that this is a religious practice instead of a practical agrarian function that was just assimilated into religion. Nearly all agrarian cultures in the Mediterranean follow this same practice: pre-christian Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Egyptian, etc.
Think of it as this: Spring is time of foaling. Flocks of fowl and animals are at their lowest numbers after the winter and need to be rebuilt by every available female, even to the point of husbanding each and every egg laid. Additionally, the Mediterranean Sea has had all winter to replenish the coastal fish population due to the stormy seas preventing any fishing fleets, however small, from sailing. Therefore, an abundance of fish and a need to restrict dairy products of any kind (all the offspring need the milk in the first month or so of foaling). At a certain point, easily recognizable by all, say about the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox (Easter) for a pre-literate society.
The Romans and Greeks had similiar fast followed by a holiday, even to the extent of giving gifts of eggs on the full moon after the vernal equinox.
Even further back, in the barbarian hunter gatherer societies - when you look for plover and other ground laying bird eggs on an early spring morning in Norhtern Europe, look around for the bunnies: they indicate areas where there are no other predators. Hence, that’s where you’ll find plenty eggs still in their nests.
Still think “Easter Eggs” and the “Easter Bunny” are modern inventions of a commercial society?
Not precisely. St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a solemnity anywhere, but many bishops in Irish-heavy areas will issue a dispensation for it anyway. It’s not an automatic dispensation like it is for Joe, though, and each bishop only has authority for his own diocese.
Other local cultural festivities sometimes also receive dispensations, even if they’re not connected to Christianity at all. I think a couple of years ago Chinese New Year got a dispensation in places, for instance.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. Saint Patrick’s Day is not a solemnity in the universal calendar, but it is a solemnity in many particular calendars around the world. Ireland is an obvious example. So too is Australia, where Saint Patrick’s Day ranks as a solemnity in every diocese throughout the country.
This year St. Patrick’s was in an almost unique position, calendar-wise. While it usually does fall during Lent, this year it fell during Holy Week, between Palm Sunday and Easter. Easter was March 23, as early as it will ever be in the lifetime of most of us. I’m not Irish, and not Catholic, but I’m Episcopalian and we take that week pretty seriously, so I didn’t go to our city St.Patrick’s Day parade and party. It wouldn’t have felt right. I understand that churches with St. Patrick as their patron celebrated officially the Sunday after Easter, which would have been March 30.
To add on, there was a good bit of debate because of St. Patrick’s Day, with some wanting to push the observance back to after Easter, and others saw no reason not to observe it on its actual date. I can’t remember what the diocese of Harrisburg decided.
Indeed. The church where I grew up isn’t named after St. Patrick, but it’s the biggest Irish church in the city, and St. Patrick’s Day mass is always a big event. This year, the bishop told them they couldn’t have it, because of holy week, but the church resisted (especially since it’s one of their biggest moneymakers). I believe the end result was that they agreed to the bishop’s request, but that a pipe-and-drum band just happened to volunteer to provide music for that Monday’s daily mass, and there happened to be a lot more attendees than usual. But hey, it was just a daily mass, and you can’t turn people away from Mass, can you?
I’m surprised that the reason wasn’t explained to people a bit better. At my church - a St Patrick’s - our PP went to great length to explain that the rules regarding precedence of liturgical days meant there was no choice but to move the celebration of St Patrick’s Day forward to before the start of Holy Week. We had it on Friday 14 March. Of course, hordes of people still turned up on Monday 17 March, just as **Chronos ** described, but they got the Monday in Holy Week, rather than Saint Patrick’s Day.
Except that nobody ever gets Saint Patrick’s Day. There’s no special readings or the like for St. Pat’s; if you go to a St. Patrick’s Day Mass you always just get whatever the daily mass would be for that day. It just so happens that this year, “whatever the daily mass would be for that day” was Monday of Holy Week.
I suppose that St. Pat’s could fall on Palm Sunday, and that could be an issue, since Palm Sunday has its own dog-and-pony-show associated with it. But of course, that’s nearly as rare as falling in Holy Week, and I don’t think any of us will see that in our lifetimes.
1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
Psalm 97:1-2,7-12 or Psalm 96:1-7
Matthew 28:16-20
And the Collect of the Day is:
Almighty God, in your providence you chose your servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of you: Grant us so to walk in that light that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I can’t remember offhand and I don’t have my missal here in the office. I’ll have to check later. They may well be the same as those given by John W. Kennedy.