I re-reading The Tin Flute for one of my lit classes, and there were two things I never understood about the chapter set at the Létourneau’s house:[ol][li]Supper at the party is served after midnight “because it was Lent.” I don’t know anything about Lent except that Catholics are expected to give up certain things, so I was wondering what midnight had to do with supper? [/li][li]Mr. Létourneau seems to run a private business selling religious artifacts to the Church. Does or did the Church operate this way, buying its materials through middlemen? I guess I just assumed that they had their own internal supply network.[/ol][/li]
Thanks in advance!
I haven’t read the book, but I can possibly answer #1.
Lent involves fasting, nowadays it is restricted to not eating meat on Friday, but depending on the time period total fasts may have also been in practice.
My assumption would be that the dinner party was scheduled at midnight following a day of total or partial fasting, making the meal a “breakfast” in the most literal sense of the word.
Thanks, belladonna.
If it helps, the party starts on a Saturday night, and ends on Sunday morning with them all going to Mass. So the meal is technically on Sunday.
I have heard it said in some traditions that the fasting aspect of Lent is suspended on a Sunday which, as a “week-iversary” of Christs resurrection, is marked by celebration, not fasting…
Grim
What time period is it set in? Different societies at different times have different Lenten rituals.
What’s confusing me is the midnight thing. Fasting was usually ended at sundown.
Lent actually ends at midnight on Holy Saturday, not on Sunday, so the feast could be a celebration of the end of Lent. Cite.
I thought about it, but I don’t think it’s Easter Sunday yet in the novel. I think it’s still late February or early March.
For the record, the novel takes place in Montreal, 1940. The party is a going-away party for the family’s son, who’s enlisted to fight in the war in Europe.
FWIW, Easter 1940 was on March 24.
http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/freq3.html#LBY
WRT Church supplies question:
The RCC has pretty much never operated its own internal supply company in the way that you’re thinking of.
While there may have been some monasteries, parishes, or even dioceses which used its own people to grow food or volunteer their skills into building buildings or creating furnishings or religious goods and articles, this has not been undertaken as standard operating procedure, especially when there is a need for items that require expertise in production (you don’t want Joe Volunteer building a cathedral).
From lowly parishes to grand cathedrals, the goods and articles needed are purchased. Someone may be contracted to do the construction, or an artist may be commissioned to create a statue.
Most items, though, are purchased from companies. Some items are simply mundane (light bulbs, cleaning supplies) and are bought from ordinary suppliers. Some companies in a secular field (home and office furnishings, e.g.) may have an ecclesiastical division (that sell pews, e.g.). And some companies cater exclusively to ecclesiastical needs, whether they be a producers of religious articles and vestments; or a monastery of nuns who bake communion wafers for the secular parishes.
Supplying the church is big business.
Peace.
P.S.:
Do a web search on either “church” or “ecclesiastical” with one of the following: supplies, vestments, furnishings, goods, articles.
You’ll see how big a business.
Who wants pews in their foyer?
My understanding of old-school Catholic practices during Lent is that there was no meat eaten during the entirety of the season. Further, people would fast on Fridays, eating nothing at all until sundown. That doesn’t explain why the party would be held midnight Saturday to Sunday. I have heard it said that Sundays don’t count during Lent for fasting, but I always thought that was an unofficial cop out.
Now, we have it a lot easier. One meat-free day a week, and fasting only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. And our fasts are about not eating between meals. (Of course, that all varies on the hard-coreness of the Catholic, but these are the requirements I was taught during Catholic school)
Oops…I didn’t read your first thread thoroughly enough, I guess. For some reason I assumed you were talking about the morning of Easter Sunday.
What I’ve always been told is that Catholic fasting during Lent means that, in addition to no snacking between meals, we are allowed one “big” meal (I suppose like a typical meal on a non-fast day) and two smaller meals that, when combined, don’t equal the big meal in quantity. Rather vague, really.
I have a little additional question about Lenten Fridays. This calendar year the Feast of St. Joseph occurred on a Friday during Lent. I go to St. Joseph Church and they told us that we didn’t have to abstain from meat on that Friday. Is this because our church’s patron was St. Joseph, or can all Catholics eat meat when this feast day lands on a Friday?
Thanks!
I went back, and I checked over the earlier chapters very carefully, and now I’m not so certain about the times – I think it may be Easter weekend after all.
(I’d assumed Chapter Seven took place a day after Chapter Six (in late February), because Rose-Anna has a premonition that her husband has just quit his job, and the next chapter begins with the two of them talking about how he quit his job. Evidently, RoseAnna’s powers of prediction aren’t as good as I thought 
– the timing is actually vague.
An Easter timing makes sense from a symbolic perspective, too, plus chocolate bunnies in stores are mentioned)
And thanks moriah. That answers my other question, though I sort of had it answered for me when I passed a liturgical supply store today :o
I’d always heard it as official. Though, of course, if you also fast on Sundays, too, there’s no foul.
Exemptions to the Lenten rules are made by bishops, so they’ll generally be made at the level of a diocese or a region of dioceses. American bishops generally allow meat-eating on St. Patrick’s Day and St. Joseph’s Day, but there aren’t any other major feast days which can fall during Lent (actually, St. Patrick’s isn’t that significant to most Catholics, either, but many American Catholics are Irish). I imagine that if you were getting married, say, in Lent, you could probably also get an exemption from your bishop.
And Hamish, by “religious artefacts”, do you mean things like the chalices and purificators (napkins) used during the service, and hymnbooks, and the like, or do you mean things like a fragment of the shinbone of St. Kunegunda and a splinter of the True Cross? If the latter, the Church hasn’t dealt much with such recently, but if the former, well, all those things need to come from somewhere.
I definitely meant the former. Monsieur Létourneau’s is mentioned as selling fonts and chasubles (sp?) to priests.
As has been touched upon earlier, there is also the element that in Catholic countries/societies there are cultural practices that are incorporated into the practice of the everyday faith. So for example that whole “break-fast meal” thing may happen in that time period among Québecois but not necessarily among, say, Puerto Ricans.
While I’ve never heard it put quite that way, what you have heard is in line with what I was always taught.
A typical fasting day in my family:
Breakfast - OJ and a bagel or bowl of cereal
Lunch - Small sandwich, piece of fruit
Dinner - Fish and chips
One hijack- Almost my whole life, I thought I hated fish. It turned out that I only hate deep fried fish. Fish and chips seems to be the typical Lenten Friday meal around here, and just the smell makes me queasy. Why couldn’t we just have a cheese pizza?
There are definitely companies and shops producing and/or selling religious artifacts : chalices, garnments or even waffers. I visited one such shop a couple times to buy material for a play. I vaguely remember the woman being reluctant to sell me something for this purpose, but I can’t remember what. Waffers, perhaps, though they were of course unconsecrated.
Why can’t I ever put all the info I want to in one post? :smack:
Here is a rundown of lenten activities. It mentions that Sundays are traditionally excluded from fasting/abstinence/giving something up because Sunday is a day of celebration. But giving something up is not official doctrine, so excluding Sunday isn’t, either.
Amen to that! I hate all seafood, so Lenten Fridays can be torture. Doesn’t seem quite fair to the fish-haters…