Last week I concluded with the Latin adage, plenus venter non studet libenter (“A full stomach doesn’t willingly apply itself to study”). Remaining a little hungry – both physically and morally – is beneficial. Constant satiation of bodily and other undertakings brings torpor and weakness in the face of more dire temptations. Lent is a time for fasting, both remedial and penitential. From apostolic times we have been obliged to have periods of self-denial.
Not to observe Lent in a serious way would itself be a sin. Caesarius of Arles (d 542) teaches: “Aliis diebus ieiunare aut remedium aut premium est, in quadragesima non ieiunare peccatum est. Alio tempore qui ieiunat accipiet indulgentiam, in his diebus qui potest, et non ieiunat, sentiet poenam.” (“On other days fasting is a remedy or a distinction, but in Lent not to fast is a sin. In another season one who fasts receives an indulgence, but in these days, whoever can fast but doesn’t will experience punishment” (s 199.)
In the 1960s, Holy Church, seemingly in her wisdom but certainly in her optimism, relaxed the already loosened positive laws for Latin Church Catholics regarding fasting and abstinence, that is, doing penance. It was thought that penances undertaken willingly, rather than because of a law, would be more salutary. With that juridical relaxation, however, pretty much everyone stopped doing penance. Most people stopped even thinking about, for example, Fridays. Where year-round meatless Fridays were a hallmark of Catholic identity recognised even by non-Catholics, and mostly respected, today Catholics are hardly to be distinguished by their practices.
Laws are not always bad and optimism about human nature is not always prudent.
Speaking of laws, it was a very good thing that the bishops of England and Wales in 2011 reinstituted, though in a somewhat flexible way, meatless Fridays year-round. Surely British readers of this faithful source of Catholic news and commentary take their obligation seriously. In the US, where I write, the situation is far murkier.
Since, as I write, I am in the Deep South with its swamps and everglades, I remind the readership that alligator can be eaten on Fridays of Lent. I once responded in Latin on my blog to a questioner: “Crocodrili et lacertae inter reptilia sunt et amphibia. Edere ergo illos feriis sextis et tempore Quadragesimae possumus. Omnibus tamen diebus ab eis edimur!”
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