FASTING AND FASTING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1898

FASTING AND FASTING.

AMONG the regulations for Lent in the Roman Catholic Church are the following, as set forth in the Catholic Mirror of February 19, by Cardinal Gibbons:—

“1. All the faithful who have completed their twenty-first year, unless exempt by dispensation or some other legitimate cause, are bound to observe the fast of Lent.

“2. They are to make one meal only a day, except on Sundays.

“3. The meal permitted on fast days is not to be taken till about noon.

“4. A small refreshment, commonly called COLLATION, is permitted in the evening.

“5. The following persons are exempt from the obligation of fasting: persons under twenty-one years of age, the sick, nursing women, those who are obliged to do hard labor, and those who, through weakness, can not fast, without great prejudice to their health.”

The above is, we suppose, general for the world, but it seems that Catholics in the United States have a much easier time; for “by virtue of an indult granted by the holy see,” March 15, 1895, is permitted “to all workingmen and their families the use of flesh meat once a day on all fast days and abstinence days throughout the year, with the exception of Fridays, Ash-Wednesday, the Wednesday and Saturday of Holy Week, and the eve of Christmas. Those who are exempt from the obligation of fasting are free to take meat more than once on the days mentioned.”

The term “workingmen” is broad enough to cover almost all cases; or is this left to the priest to determine as to who is and who is not a “workingman”? But on account of the gracious concession granted Catholics in the United States, the cardinal tells us that “those who avail themselves of the indult are not allowed to use flesh meat and fish at the same meal, and they are earnestly exhorted to perform some other act of mortification, such as abstinence from intoxicating liquors.”

All of which suggest, we should fancy, to thinking Catholics the following questions: If fasting is a moral obligation (something we “are bound to observe”), how can it be dispensed with? And if it is not a moral obligation, why should it be enjoined? And if it is a moral obligation in other countries, why should it not be in the United States, a land where it would seem fasting could be better observed with health to both body and soul than in most other countries? And, finally, why should not Christians—the faithful—not abstain without considering it “an act of mortification” from the use of “intoxicating liquors” every day in the year?

The fasting enjoined by the Word of God is voluntary, self-sacrificing, and therefore upbuilding. See Matt. 6: 16–18; Isa. 58: 1–11. There are thousands of people in this broad land who consider it no “act of mortification” to the flesh at all to abstain from flesh meats, intoxicating liquors, and tobacco, and who eat generally but twice a day. And most of them do an immense amount of work too. How much better are God’s ways than the ways of men!