Jimmy Akin

Although eating meat on Fridays during Lent normally is prohibited, this does not apply on Fridays that are solemnities. The Code of Canon Law provides that:

Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (Can. 1251).

Since today–Friday–is the solemnity of St. Joseph, the law of abstinence doesn’t apply.

Patrons of the highly-effective Atkins Diet, rejoice!

One apologetic note: Some of Protestants–particularly those of Irish descent–have sought in recent years to claim St. Patrick as one of their own. In other words, they have argued that he believed in Protestant Christianity and was not a Catholic.

This is completely false. It amazes me that they can even make such a preposterous claim. St. Patrick was a Latin-speaking bishop commissioned by the pope and whose writings abound with Catholic teaching. Only a person who had never read them, or never read them with any degree of attention, could miss this fact.

For the evidence, see here. Also you can read St. Patrick’s Confession.

One apologetic note: Some of Protestants–particularly those of Irish descent–have sought in recent years to claim St. Patrick as one of their own. In other words, they have argued that he believed in Protestant Christianity and was not a Catholic.

This is completely false. It amazes me that they can even make such a preposterous claim. St. Patrick was a Latin-speaking bishop commissioned by the pope and whose writings abound with Catholic teaching. Only a person who had never read them, or never read them with any degree of attention, could miss this fact.

For the evidence, see here. Also you can read St. Patrick’s Confession.

A reader writes:

Lent is a time of following the Lord’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert; a time of self-denial and penance, leading to new life at Easter. The point of this time period is to spend 40 days in spiritual discipline. If you count from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (inclusive), but excluding Sundays, you arrive at 40. Again, the point is to spend 40 days of penance before Easter. That the number 40 neatly fits within the technical bounds of Lent is not, it seems to me, the point. Counting in this fashion is yet another support to the notion that Sundays, though certainly within the season of Lent, are not observed as days of penance, but rather days of celebrating the Lord’s Day.

It is true, poetically speaking, that "Lent is a time of following the Lord’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert; a time of self-denial and penance, leading to new life at Easter." However, the Church’s law does not appear to support the claim that "The point of this time period is to spend 40 days in spiritual discipline . . . before Easter." As noted above, there are more than forty penitential days in this period, and penitential days are days of spiritual discipline. I don’t think that the Church would regard any particular number of days as "the point," but it has established more than forty in this period.

It is true that "If you count from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (inclusive), but excluding Sundays, you arrive at 40," but this does not correspond to the Church’s law. One can say that "Counting in this fashion is yet another support to the notion that Sundays, though certainly within the season of Lent, are not observed as days of penance, but rather days of celebrating the Lord’s Day," but this posits a false opposition between Sunday being a day of celebration and Sunday being a day of penance. It can be, and during Lent is, both.

The Church’s law is clear that Sundays in Lent both involve the celebration of the Resurrection and the practice of penitence. The penitential practice of the Church is even reflected in the liturgy on Sundays of Lent, as illustrated by the fact that the Gloria and the Alleluia are omitted, purple vestments are worn, and special readings (e.g., this coming Sunday is the "unless you repent you also will perish" passage). It’s also worth noting that, as the General Instruction provides, "Rose may be used, where it is the practice, on Gaudete Sunday (Third Sunday of Advent) and on Laetare Sunday (Fourth Sunday of Lent)" (GIRM 346f). The standard interpretation of the use of rose vestments on Laetare Sunday is that it is a lessening of the penance that is already in place.

The decisive fact, though, is simply that the law (quoted above) provides that "The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent." It doesn’t say "except Sundays."

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

For whatever it may be worth…

Ash Wednesday (inclusive) through Holy Saturday (inclusive), less Sundays, would yield a count of 40 days.

So, if you’re skipping Sundays (dealt with in another post), you could say that there are 40 penitential days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Note, though, that this little system would consider the Solemnities of Saint Joseph and the Annunciation as 2 of the 40 days – hardly days of penance in most minds.

I appreciate the effort and ingenuity involved in this solution, but it does not appear to correspond to the Church’s law. It is true that "if you’re skipping Sundays (dealt with in another post), you could say that there are 40 penitential days between Ash Wednesday and Easter," but one would be making up one’s own rules to get this total. The Church’s law is different on this point. According to the Code of Canon Law:

The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent [Canon 1250].

The limits of the season of Lent are defined as follows:

"Lent runs from Ash Wednesday until the Mass of the Lord’s Supper exclusive [General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar 28].

This means, as we saw below, that Lent includes forty four days of penance. If you want to have the number of "penitential days between Ash Wednesday and Easter," then the total will be forty five because Good Friday is also a day of penance under Canon 1250. (Holy Saturday, while it is a day on which fasting is recommended, is not technically a days of penance in the law.)