It covered the basics of the rules of fast and abstinence in Lent, but it didn’t cover every possible application of them.
Then, by email, I received this query, which deals with an application I hadn’t considered before:
Is fasting and abstinence practised by Roman Catholics who are incarcerated?
Thanks. Your prompt reply is earnestly requested.
Interesting question!
In principle, both fast and abstinence are to be practiced by Catholic prisoners. There is no general exception for them (not that I have been able to find).
However, prison poses special challenges.
Could there be exceptions in individual cases?
How to Answer the Question
There are two ways to attack a question like this, where there is no explicit answer in the Code of Canon Law.
The first is to dive into the secondary literature (commentaries on the Code of Canon Law, handbooks of moral and pastoral theology, etc.).
Much of that will date from before the current, 1983 Code, and even before the Church’s current system of penitential practices was set up in 1966. However, it might still shed light on the question today.
I checked the main U.S. commentary and didn’t find anything on the question.
I’m sure there is some discussion of it out there, but it might take more time than we have before Lent begins for me to find it, so in the interests of providing a timely answer, let me pursue the other way of attacking the question, which is to try to extract the principles embedded in the law and apply them to this situation.
What’s the Goal?
The first question to answer is what is the goal that the Church’s requirements of fast and abstinence are trying to accomplish?
It isn’t to get people to eat less or fewer types of food, whether from reasons of diet, economy, health, or what have you.
Eating less food (in the case of fasting) or fewer types of food (in the case of abstinence) is just a means to an end.
What end?
Penance.
That’s why this topic is dealt with in the section on penitential days in the Code.
By undertaking a form of limited hardship, we can express sorrow for our past sins and train ourselves in self-discipline to say no to sin in the future.
That’s fundamentally what we’re trying to accomplish here, and it leads to a second question . . .
How Much Hardship?
The Church, at least in the Latin Rite today, does not expect us to undertake extreme hardship in pursuit of these goals on Ash Wednesday and the Friday of Lent and Good Friday.
With the discipline of fasting, all that is required by law is cutting down a bit on what we’d otherwise eat. We’re allowed one full meal and two cases where we can have “some food.”
Comparing that to the normal practice of eating three full meals and allowing oneself a few snacks, that’s not a huge difference.
When it comes to abstaining from meat, that would not have been a big deal–historically–because until recently, many people did not eat meat every day (some still don’t).
The requirement of abstinence just meant not indulging in what was–then–a cultural sign of celebration (eating meat).
So in both cases, the Church is only expecting us to shoulder a quite modest form of hardship.
But this burden can fall disproportionately on some . . .
When a Little Is a Lot
Some people are in situations in which the disciplines of fast and abstinence would pose a disproportionate burden on them.
This is more common with the requirement of fast than of abstinence, since normally other foods can be eaten in place of meat. If meat were the only source of calories that was available, even abstinence could pose a disproportionate burden.
But more commonly the situation arises with fasting. This can happen, for example with various medical conditions, such as diabetes.
Diabetics needs to keep their blood sugar in a certain range, and this can require a more frequent intake of food than envisioned by the Church’s fasting discipline.
The situation can also arise from things other than medical conditions. The standard sources from before Vatican II note exceptions for workers who need to keep their energy level up during the day, lest a lack of food interfere with them fulfilling their job duties.
In such situations, people are excused from keeping the discipline of fasting (and/or, more rarely, abstinence).
Sound pastoral practice, though, would urge them to find another way of practicing penance on these days in order to honor the spirit of the day.
So What About Prisoners?
I am not fully conversant with how food is regulated in jails and prisons, and I imagine that it varies considerably from place to place. However, it seems certain that prisoners generally have less freedom in terms of when and what to eat than non-prisoners.
In some situations, they may also have less flexibility regarding their activity level.
If that lack of freedom would significantly increase the burden of keeping the disciplines of fast and abstinence then a prisoner would be excused from keeping them.
Interestingly, I can see in the case of a prisoner how situations regarding abstinence could be more challenging.
On a Friday in Lent they might be served a food that has meat in it as their principal source of calories for a meal. Removing the meat might either be impossible, very difficult, or might so decrease the calories available to them that it would turn an occasion of abstinence into an occasion of fasting.
This is not required. In such cases the prisoner would be excused from abstinence.
Whether the burden of the disciplines of fast and abstinence are disproportionately high on a prisoner will depend on his individual situation and will require a judgement call.
A prisoner is bound to fast and abstain if he can do so reasonably. If the burden would be disproportionately high for either, though, then he is excused from that requirement, just as a person with a food-related medical condition or other situation would be.
In such cases, the prisoner should still seek to keep the spirit of the day in some way.
They could also choose to fast and abstain anyway, even with the greater burden. The Church’s requirements regarding these practices are minimums, not maximums, and we are all encouraged to do more than the minimum. This is not a matter of requirement but of free choice, and choosing to do more than the minimum is praiseworthy.
What About Prison Officials?
The above information applies to prisoners, but what about prison officials who are (to a significant degree) in control of the food Catholic prisoners have available to them on the Church’s penitential days?
Since there is no general exception made for prisoners to the disciplines of fast and abstinence (only need-based exceptions, where they exist), prison officials should accomodate Catholic prisoners’ abilities to fast and abstain on the Church’s penitential days.
There are two grounds for this: First, there is the simple humanitarian ground of trying to allow another person to fulfill his religious duties. Second, there are the protections of religious liberty found in U.S. law (most notably in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, although there are many other protections of the free exercise of religion as well).
Thus they should seek to allow Catholic prisoners to have meatless meals on days of abstinence and, on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, they should not impose activity levels on prisoners that would be inconsistent with fasting.
They should also seek, to the extent possible, to have Catholic services available for prisoners on these days as well, particularly on Ash Wednesday, the Sundays of Lent, and the days of Holy Week, including Good Friday, leading up to Holy Saturday and Easter.
Remembering Those in Prison
I hope the above information is useful, and I invite readers to keep those behind bars in your prayers.
Our Lord took special note of the care we should have for prisoners, telling us,
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
27. Lent [is a liturgical season that] is ordered to preparing for the celebration of Easter, since the lenten liturgy prepares for celebration of the paschal mystery both catechumens, by the various stages of Christian initiation, and the faithful, who recall their own Baptism and do penance.
The Teutonic word Lent, which we employ to denote the forty days’ fast preceding Easter, originally meant no more than the spring season. Still it has been used from the Anglo-Saxon period to translate the more significant Latin term quadragesima (French carême, Italian quaresima, Spanish, cuaresma), meaning the “forty days”, or more literally the “fortieth day”. This in turn imitated the Greek name for Lent, tessarakoste (fortieth), a word formed on the analogy of Pentecost (pentekoste), which last was in use for the Jewish festival before New Testament times.
The evangelists Mark and Luke both speak from their own perspectives, which helps better express the complex truth about Jesus.
While they may agree about the facts of Jesus’ life, the authors of the four gospels have different interests and perspectives.
Matthew has a particular interest in Jewish concerns, Luke has a particular interest in Gentile concerns, etc.
But sometimes the differences between them come out in more personal ways.
Tuesday’s gospel reading contains a particularly striking illustration of that.
Mark on Doctors
Tuesday’s Gospel reading contains the passage from Mark 5 dealing with the woman with the flow of blood. You know, the one who is healed by sneaking up and touching Jesus’ clothing.
In Mark’s account of the event, we read:
And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse [Mark 5:25-26].
Ouch! Harsh.
Physicians had caused this woman a lot of suffering, they took all her money, and she got worse rather than better.
Not a positive commentary on the medical profession.
Some Truth
The comment would have resonated with many people in Mark’s day, for the state of the medical profession was primitive.
Doctors might be well meaning, but they had nothing like the tools we do today.
Even just a few centuries ago, one physician (my memory fails me on precisely who) made the ironic statement that medicine amounts to making the patient comfortable while nature takes its course.
Yikes!
And even today there are many situations that are not treatable or not easily treatable. We’re only at the dawn of effective medicine (that is, if we don’t ruin the future course of medicine by making the development of new cures uneconomical).
A Matter of Perspective
While it wouldn’t be surprising for many patients in Mark’s day to share his outlook on doctors, there is one group that you could count on to have a significantly different perspective.
40 days after his birth, Christ was presented at the temple. Why?
Later this week the Church celebrates the Presentation of the Lord.
It’s a feast that happens every year on February 2nd.
We read about the presentation of the Lord in Luke 2, but the text can be a little mysterious.
What is actually happening there?
Some claim that Luke himself didn’t know . . .
What Luke Says
Here is what Luke actually says about the event . . .
[22] And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord [23] (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) [24] and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
He then records the encounters with Simeon and Anna the prophetess, but at the moment our focus is what Luke refers to as “their purification.”
Can you receive medical treatment when you're sick? Or does that indicate a lack of faith?According to some Christians, we shouldn’t ever be sick. If we ever are sick, it represents a failure on our part.
We haven’t had enough faith, they may say, for if we had perfect faith, God would heal us.
Some would see going to the doctor as a sign of bad or weak faith.
It would be nice if we could be healed, instantly, of any sickness or infirmity.
It would also be a great evangelization tool, if people saw Christians never got sick.
But the fact is that God allows sickness in our lives.
In fact, I’ve been sick for the last week with a bad cold, but I’m feeling better.
At least I’m feeling enough better to make this video, and I thought I’d to one about sickness.
Here are some biblical reasons why being sick does not indicate a lack of faith, and why it’s okay to go to the doctor.
Paul was converted when Christ appeared to him. What should you know about St. Paul and his conversion?
This Friday, the Church celebrates the conversion of St. Paul.
Here are eight things you need to know about him–and his conversion.
1. Where was St. Paul from?
In Acts 21:39, St. Paul states:
“I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city.”
Tarsus was the capital city of the Roman province of Cilicia. This is on the southeast coast of modern Turkey, so St. Paul was not from the holy land. He was actually a Jew born in what is now Turkey.
It was a port city and a noted commercial center. For these reasons, and because it was the capital, he can describe it as “no mean city” (that is, no common, ordinary city). It was famous.
One of the things it was famous for was being the place where Mark Anthony first met Cleopatra, after which they embarked on their doomed alliance.
Tarsus survives today as the city of Mersin, Turkey.
In Jerusalem. In Acts 22:3, Paul gives a bit more information about his background:
“I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city [Jerusalem] at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as you all are this day.”
Gamaliel was a famous Jewish teacher. So famous, in fact, that we know about him today from Jewish sources.
Gamaliel is also mentioned in Acts, where he takes an open-minded view of Christianity, urging that it not be persecuted (Acts 5:34-42). Paul did not agree with him at this time, because this was before Paul’s great persecution of the Church, as well as before his conversion.
In a previous post, we looked at a common answer to the problem of evil–that God allows sin and the suffering it causes to exist because the only way to eliminate them would be to eliminate free will.
Without free will, according to this view, something important would be lost.
If we didn’t freely choose good–to freely love God and love our fellow human beings–then these actions would lose something very important.
It would be like being “loved” by a robot–a being programmed to do nothing else.
The Love of the Saints
What about the saints in heaven? They don’t sin. Does that make their love less valuable?
This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 16 January 2012 – 10 February 2013 (subscribe here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):
