What does the law of fast and abstinence actually require?
Fr Henry Davis SJ explains the customs in force in the universal Church and in England in 1936.
Fr Henry Davis SJ explains the customs in force in the universal Church and in England in 1936.
Editor’s Notes
As Lent begins, Catholics face the annual perplexity on what is required by the law of fast and abstinence in our day.
What follows is Fr Henry Davis’s treatment of the law of fast and abstinence in the 1936 edition of his Moral and Pastoral Theology (Vol. II). The first part deals with fasting, and the second with abstinence.
The proliferation of dispensations and mitigations—even in 1936, never mind the significant mitigations of 1941 or 1949—can make it difficult to see who really is bound to fast and to what degree. Some of these dispensations can seem somewhat strange—for example, the dispensation from two consecutive days of abstinence outside of Lent (which means that most Ember Saturdays are not days of abstinence).
That said, we hope that its witness to the custom of its time may provide some answers to those looking for advice, such as:
Who is bound to fast?
How much should we eat at our collations?
Does coffee break the fast?
What reasons dispense us from fasting?
If we can’t fast, are we obliged to do something else?
This text answers many other questions which perhaps we never thought could be asked.
FASTING AND ABSTINENCE
Fr Henry Davis SJ
From Moral and Pastoral Theology Vol. II
Sheed & Ward, London, 1945, pp 429-438
1. The Law of Fasting
The law of fasting prescribes that only one full meal be taken on a fast day, but does not forbid the taking of some food, morning and evening, in accordance with approved local custom, in respect of the amount and the nature of the food. Furthermore, when meat is allowed to those bound to fast, fish also may be taken at the same meal. It is permitted to fasters to interchange the times of the evening collation and dinner (c. 1251). There is a growing opinion, which, we believe, may be regarded as probably correct until the matter is officially settled, that the quantities allowed at breakfast and collation may be interchanged.
2. Liquid, as such, is not excluded by the law of fasting. Therefore, wine, beer, tea, cocoa, coffee, do not violate the fast, though some of these are slightly nutritious. But soup, oil, thick chocolate, fruit and whole milk, are foodstuffs and violate the fast. As liquid does not violate the fast, it may lawfully be taken even to relieve the feeling of hunger. Sweets, in small quantities, for the aid of digestion or as antiseptics for the mouth, throat, or breath, do not violate the fast. It is also permitted, when drinking outside the times of meals, to take a very little food once or twice only in the day. To act often thus during the day would render the fast nugatory.
3. The one full meal that is allowed on fast days may not, according to common opinion, be extended beyond two hours, unless there is a very good reason for doing so, and unless custom sanctions light dessert or lighter foods to be taken at the end of dinner.
The extraordinary length of three to four hours for dinner was stated by Elbel and Gobat as an occasional custom in Germany. Some authors maintain that in such extreme cases of very protracted dinner, the evening collation should be omitted. The view may be probable.
Furthermore, the one full meal may not be so interrupted as to develop into two meals. An interruption of little more than half an hour would be contrary to the spirit of the law, unless a faster were obliged, for a good reason, to interrupt his meal. He might return and finish the meal, even several hours after, if such delay were unavoidable, for the Church allows the full meal.
Readers and servers at table may take some food before their dinner to enable them to read or serve, for this amount is part of their dinner. So, too, if one has risen from table, it is permitted to return shortly after, if some dessert is put on the table.
4. Although, as stated above, the interchange of the quantity allowed at evening collation with the few ounces allowed at breakfast is probably lawful, if this change is found necessary, there is no strict obligation to fast.
5. Besides the one full meal, some food at breakfast and at an evening meal is allowed. But local custom as to quantity and nature of the food then taken must be observed. At breakfast, in this country, two or three ounces of bread with a little butter may be taken by virtue of a papal indult (June, 1923). Coffee and light chocolate do not rank as food, and a small quantity of milk may be added.
6. The evening meal may consist of about eight ounces of solid food, not flesh meat.1 In colder regions, a little more may be taken, as also by any who require a little more, up to about ten ounces in all, if so much is necessary in order that the law of fasting may be observed. But if a full meal of over twelve ounces is then necessary, the law ceases to bind.
S. Alphonsus thought that eight ounces of bread cooked in water and oil could not be taken, but modern authors allow this.2 On the same principle, it appears that eight ounces of dry oatmeal may be taken as porridge, though when cooked its weight would be very considerable. The addition of water does not change the nature of the un-cooked meal.
Some authors however, would not allow more than four to five ounces of dry meal made into porridge; certainly a considerable amount. Some authors make a very subtle distinction, to the disadvantage of fasters, between dipping bread into water or wine, and cooking bread in water or wine so as to make a pulse. They maintain that in the second case the food is not merely bread and water (or wine), and that it is very much more satisfying.
The distinction may, we believe, be dismissed, as repletion is not a deciding factor in the law of fasting, and eight ounces of bread are not increased though cooked into a pulse. On the vigil of Christmas (jejunium gaudiosum), additional cakes and lighter foods may be taken, so that the quantity in all is doubled.3
7. The quality of the food at the evening meal depends on local custom. In some places, eggs are allowed, in many, white meats, in others, not even fish is allowed. In this country, we believe that it was customary to take fish but not eggs, cheese or milk puddings, though small quantities of egg in salad, or a little cheese with macaroni or spaghetti or vermicelli have been allowed by way of condiment.
Now, by virtue of an indult granted first to Australia and extended later to Great Britain (1923), the collation may consist of about eight ounces, at which butter, cheese, eggs, or fish may be taken in small quantity. We believe that in England it is not customary to drink milk at collation.
8. The time of the one full meal on fast days is normally about midday, in accordance with custom. The time may certainly be anticipated by one hour; to anticipate it by much more would require some slight just reason. It is obvious that, if the chief meal is taken in the evening on a day of fasting, the collation which is normally taken as supper may be taken any time about or after midday.
2. The Days of Fasting
The days of fasting, prescribed by common law, are as follows:
The days of Lent, except Sundays, to noon on Holy Saturday
The vigil of Pentecost, and
The vigils of the Assumption, All Saints and Christmas, except when any of these feasts fall on a Monday
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the four Ember weeks.
The law is universally dispensed on all Sundays and also on all holy days of obligation outside Lent (c. 1252). The vigils, in respect of fasting, are not anticipated (c. 1252), as when the Assumption falls on Monday. Where a holy day of obligation is not actually observed owing to dispensation, if it fall on a fast day, the law of fasting is to be observed.4
3. Subjects of the Law of Fasting
All the faithful are bound to fast, unless dispensed or exempted, from their twenty-first year of age completed to their fifty-ninth year of age completed. The exemption from fasting that was claimed by some authors for women of fifty years of age was founded on the presumption of their weakness at that age. The opinion was doubtless a probable one, and the value of the opinion was that a woman of fifty was exempted unless she was, as a fact, proved to be strong enough to fast. The law makes no distinction, but imposes the precept of fasting on all up to the age of fifty-nine years completed. If, therefore, women of fifty are still judged to be unfit to fast, they are obviously exempt. But it is not proved now, nor was it proved before the publication of the Codex, that women of fifty were or are, in general, incapable of fasting by reason of age alone.5
4. Dispensation from the Law of Fasting
Dispensation can be given by local Ordinaries and parish priests in individual cases to their subjects severally, and to individual families subject to their jurisdiction, and that, even outside their dioceses and parishes, and also to strangers within their territory (c. 1245). Superiors in a clerical exempt Order can similarly dispense their professed subjects, novices and all those who live in the religious house day and night by reason of service, education, hospitality or sickness (c. 1245, 3). Furthermore, local Ordinaries can dispense the entire diocese or any part of it for the special reason of a great concourse of the people or of public health (c. 1245, 2).6
5. Violation of the Fast
If the law has been completely violated on a given day because one obliged to fast has had a second full meal, the law cannot any longer be observed on that day. But before it has been completely violated, partial violations of it are possible, both grave and slight. Thus, small quantities of food beyond what is permitted can coalesce and constitute, at last, a grave violation. Four ounces are probably required to constitute a grave violation of the law, but this will not excuse one from continuing the fast on that day, for it is one thing to have taken a second full meal, which completely violates the fast, and another to take small extra quantities or a large quantity short of a full meal. If, inadvertently, eight ounces of food or a little more have been taken at breakfast, probably the usual amount may be taken at sup- per, since no one is strictly bound to invert the order of the meals.
6. Causes that excuse from Fasting
1. Hard work on the part of manual workers or artisans. As this excuse is valid for all persons of these classes, it applies also to those who could, on a day of fasting, omit their work, for the omission is so much productive work lost to the common good. The excuse is valid also for strong workers, since custom excuses the whole class. They are also excused even on the odd days when they rest, for they require rest and must refresh their vigour for future work. But this excuse does not avail for work that is light.
2. The presumption of exemption favours those who are engaged in continual work of piety or charity, as preachers in Lent who preach almost daily, lecturers in higher studies who lecture for one hour daily, unless the lectures require practically no serious preparation, schoolmasters who teach the young for four or five hours daily, as this is undoubtedly a severe strain on bodily strength, those who serve the sick with considerable fatigue, whether freely or from duty, soldiers and sailors on service.
3. Physical impossibility exempts from the law, as is obvious, and also moral impossibility. Thus, exemption extends to the sick, the weak, the convalescent, women in pregnancy or giving the breast, and those who would suffer notable inconvenience. The poor, too, are excused, whose only food is bread and little else, as this is not sufficient for real sustenance, for though the poor may have become inured to their hard life, their vitality is gradually sapped for want of nourishment, to the detriment of their offspring. Those, too, are excused who, by fasting, would suffer any considerable harm in body or mind, or think they are likely to do so.
4. Work that does not of itself exempt from fasting, such as the light labour of typing, copying, study, painting, may easily do so if other factors accompanied with fasting would render the work imperfect or perfunctory. Thus, a student may find his mind too easily tired on a fast day, or a preacher cannot prepare his sermon, or a confessor cannot sit long hours in the confessional, without notable inconvenience. Another reason not usually included by authors is valuable time lost to work in consequence of fasting. In all cases, a notable inconvenience—but not merely the inconvenience of feeling hungry—excuses.
5. A wife will be excused if, by fasting, she so annoys her husband that he gives way to violent temper and makes her life unhappy.
6. A journey on foot or vigorous physical exercise for three consecutive hours may be considered a sufficient tax on strength to excuse. If the person is weak, or the roads bad, or the weather inclement, the relative inconvenience must be considered in individual cases. Servants, shopkeepers, messengers, waiters, porters, and all who, by reason of their occupation, cover many miles in the day, or are very fatigued, as they often are by standing all day in shops, are certainly exempted. In almost all servile and manual occupations where competition is keen, and where the weak and the inefficient are dismissed, the Church cannot be supposed to put a heavy handicap on Catholics. As stated above, these people can very often keep the law of abstinence, and in that way can exercise the virtue of temperance, practise penance and edify their neighbours.
7. To undertake certain occupations that are incompatible with fasting may or may not be wrong. Much de-ends on motive and necessity. To undertake freely the service of the sick is a good work and if it is incompatible with fasting it excuses. To undertake labour that is really useful and profitable, and where it cannot reasonably be deferred, as in cases of more than ordinary profit, and where, by deferring it, valuable time of some moment would be lost, will be a sufficient excuse for undertaking it, if incompatible with fasting. The mere pleasure of hunting, walking, riding, playing, will occasionally, though not more than occasionally, excuse from fasting, since one is not bound to abstain from reasonable recreation of a very exhilarating sort, good for mind and body alike, on every fast day.
7. The Law of Abstinence
1. All the faithful are bound to observe the law after the completion of their seventh year of age.
2. The law of abstinence forbids the eating of flesh meat and meat soup, but not of eggs, milk foods and condiments from animal fats (c. 1250). By condiment is meant that which is taken—whether liquid or solid—in a small quantity with food to make it more palatable. Butter made from animal fats, and margarine from palm kernel are allowed. Jellies also which are made from fish or animal bones are not meat. Lard, the rendered fat of hog, and dripping, the grease that has dripped from roasted meat, may be taken as condiments. But suet, the fatty tissue about the kidneys and omentum of ox and sheep, being an integral part of the animal, is flesh meat, and is forbidden. Suet pudding, made of flour and shredded suet, is forbidden if the suet is more than a condiment, that is, more than a small fraction of the whole.
3. What precisely is an animal, within the meaning of the law, cannot be completely determined. We need not take scientific definitions, but may have recourse to the common usage of the term. In case of doubt, the rule laid down by S. Thomas may well be taken, namely, that by the term are meant animals that are born on land and breathe.7 S. Thomas meant, we believe, animals that are born, live and mature on land. In the case of amphibians, their similarity to land animals must decide. In case of doubt the law does not bind.
4. Under fish are included frogs, snails, tortoises, oysters, lobsters, otters, beavers, crabs. In some villages, owing to long established custom, gulls, ducks, teal, coot, and all water-fowl are so treated. It is credibly stated that the villagers are tenacious of an old privilege, arising more from an abuse than from an indult or legitimate custom.
8. The Days of Abstinence in England and Wales
All Fridays, except those which are actual holy days of obligation outside Lent, and except December 26th;
The Wednesdays in Lent;
The Ember Wednesdays; Ember Saturday in Lent;
The vigils of the Assumption, All Saints and Christmas Day, but not if any of these feasts falls on a Monday.
The Wednesdays in Lent are enumerated because in England there is an indult to substitute the Wednesdays for the Saturdays. The Saturdays of the Ember weeks are not days of abstinence—outside Lent—in virtue of an Apostolic letter which dispensed from the abstinence on any day that immediately precedes or follows a Friday or another day of abstinence.8
Strangers coming into England from other countries are bound to abstain on either the Wednesdays and Fridays, or on the Fridays and Saturdays of Lent, but scandal must be avoided if the latter alternative is adopted, the reason being that the substance of the precept is that there should be two abstinence days in each week in Lent.9
9. Dispensation from the Law of Abstinence
Dispensation from the law of abstinence can be given by those who can dispense in the law of fasting. When dispensation is given to eat meat on certain days of Lent— which are fasting days—those who are bound to fast may eat meat at the chief meal only, others as often as they wish.10 If this relaxation of the law is given with an obligation of reciting certain prayers, this precept binds under venial sin and ceases with the day for which dispensation was granted. The same is true if an alms was enjoined.
10. Violation of the Law of Abstinence
The violation of the law is in itself a grave sin, and the law is violated on each separate occasion (not necessarily with each separate piece) on which meat is taken. The law of fasting can be substantially and completely violated only once on a fast day, whereas the law of abstinence can be seriously violated any number of times on a day of abstinence. But itis possible to commit a venial sin by violating this law when, for example, a very small amount of meat is taken. Authors generally think that two complete ounces of meat, not less than that, is a grave amount, but if meat soup is taken, the grave amount would be double.
11. Persons Excused from the Law of Abstinence
Those are excused who are under seven years of age or who have never come to the use of reason; those who cannot get abstinence fare, or who cannot keep the law without considerable difficulty, whether of health, occasion, time or expense, for example, the sick, the convalescent, the very poor; those who require meat for health’s sake, as women near and after childbirth; those who have to undertake considerable manual labour; those who journey and cannot get abstinence fare without considerable difficulty; wives and children who by abstaining will incur the serious anger of the father of the family; those who by abstaining would not secure sufficient nourishment. Servants are excused who are unable to get abstinence fare, though, if conveniently possible, they should try to find another place. Vagrants who live by what they can beg are excused, as also soldiers and sailors who are fed, during service, by the State.
Practical Applications
1. Those on shipboard are bound to fast and abstain in accordance with the general law of the Church—unless a Company has received special privileges for its passengers,—for the high seas are in no diocese, and therefore particular territorial laws do not enforce obligations nor convey privileges as soon as a ship quits territorial waters.11
2. If an invited Catholic guest finds meat fare and nothing else prepared on a day of abstinence, he will greatly edify his hosts if he asks for maigre fare, but if considerable offence would be given by his request, and if there is not serious scandal—which can always be forestalled by explanation —he is excused from the law.
3. If, by accident, meat fare has been prepared on a day of abstinence, and maigre fare cannot be got without considerable trouble, meat may be taken. This is particularly the case with poor families.
4. Wife, children and servants are not dispensed from the law merely because the master is dispensed, but they will usually be exempt owing to the grave difficulty of preparing a double dinner.
Pastoral Note
The law of abstinence from flesh meat is more generally observed, and can be more easily observed, than the law of fasting. Both laws have been mitigated in recent years, but the law of abstinence on the actual days of abstinence remains almost identical with what it was formerly.
Great numbers of the faithful are unable to fast, owing to conditions of work, but comparatively few are unable to abstain.
In the case of those who are unable to fast, the pastor will rightly urge the importance of performing some penance, corporal or spiritual, and even of keeping the fast partially, though he cannot impose any strict obligation. It is chiefly by some voluntary penance, even if slight, that we can retain the proper sense of the sinfulness of sin, and try to bring the sensual appetites under the sway of reason and law.
In the case of many, the very conditions of life are a perpetual penance, which they can offer to God in satisfaction for sin, uniting these trials with the penances of the Saints and the sufferings of Christ our Lord.
Although, therefore, fasting may be impossible for many of the faithful, the pastor will do well to urge a strict observance of the law of abstinence. A little foresight and trouble are needed on the part of the mother of the family in providing abstinence fare, and it is generally the mother’s fault if her husband and children do not observe the law. The faithful should be exhorted to pay great attention to this law of the Church, so easy to observe with a modicum of care. An instruction, several times in the year, especially in Ember weeks and before Lent, will be well-timed and helpful. At the same time, the pastor will try to take the mean between severity and laxity. He should not allow his people to be carried along on the flood of pleasure and indifference to all restraint. By the loss of self-restraint, sin becomes easy and desirable.
Dost thou see what fasting accomplishes? It heals diseases, dries up bodily distillations, drives away demons, expels wicked thoughts, renders the mind clearer, makes the heart pure, sanctifies the body, and finally sets man before the throne of God.
Whosoever, therefore, is tormented by an unclean spirit, if he take heed of this and make use of this remedy—fasting, I say—immediately the evil spirit, overcome, shall depart, fearing the power of fasting. For demons greatly delight in gluttony, drunkenness, and bodily indulgence...
Fasting, indeed, is the food of angels, and he who makes use of it must be reckoned among the angelic order.12
St Athanasius
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When a fast day is not a day of abstinence, fasters are allowed to eat meat only at the chief meal. Those not bound to fast may eat meat as often as they wish (P.C.C.J., Oct. 29, 1919).
Theol, Mor., lib. 3, n. 1029.
Verm., III, n. 873.
S.C.C., Aug. 28, 1911, ad Arch. Mechlin; P.C.C.J., Feb. 17, 1918.
For a long account of the matter, cf. Ubach, I, n. 371, note 6, who admits that women of fifty years are presumed to be exempt, unless they are certainly proved to be able to fast. S. Alphonsus did not venture to think the opinion probable (lib. 3, n. 1037). A reply (P.C.C.J., Jan. 13, 1918), appears to be decisive.
The Ordinary may dispense a whole town if there is to be, v.g., a great concourse of people at one particular parish church (P.C.C.J., March 12, 1929).
ST, IIa IIae, Q147, A8.
Jan 27. 1911: AAS, 1911, p 58.
SCC, Feb 9, 1924.
No distinction need be made between the exempted and the dispensed (cf. I.E.R., May, 1930, p. 508).
Cf. Ferreres, II, n. 1393.
Videsne quid faciat jejunium? Morbos sanat, distillationes corporis exsiccat, demones fugat, pravas cogitationes expellit, mentem clariorem reddit, cor mundum efficit, corpus sanctificat, denique ad thronum Dei hominem sistit. Quisquis igitur ab immundo spiritu vexatur, sihoc animad-ertat, et hoc pharmaco utatur, jejunio inquam, statim spiritus malus oppressus abscedet, vim jejunii metuens. Walde enim demones oblectantur crapula et ebrietate et corporis commodis… Jejunium enim Angelorum cibus est et qui eo utitur, ordinis angelici censendus est
S. Athan. de Virg., in 2 Noct. Dom. 3 Nov.
6.5 is the best concession to reality I have ever seen!
All of this parsing of the law of fasting shows how far we are from the first ages of the Church.