Fasting is one of the chief means of penance we can perform to make satisfaction for sin, as our Lady of Fatima repeatedly called for. However, in a modern Church that legislates fasting only two days a year, we find a woefully lacking answer to Heaven’s incessant calls for penance and reparation. Understanding the decline of fasting over time in the Church should inspire us to observe these older customs and to encourage other Catholics to do so for the purpose of making satisfaction for sin.
While the purpose of fasting has remained the same, how fasting is observed has changed. As more Catholics seek to rediscover the traditions of earlier centuries and piously observe these traditions, they are often confused by the changing disciplines and exceptions for certain times, places, and circumstances. St. Francis de Sales remarked, “If you’re able to fast, you will do well to observe some days beyond what are ordered by the Church.”
This book explains fasting and how it has changed over the centuries in one of the most complete compilations yet written. Unfortunately, most summaries of fasting are either inaccurate or incomplete. However, rather than being a mere academic exercise, the purpose of studying the history of fasting is ultimately to help us rediscover these more ancient practices in an attempt to better observe our Lord and our Blessed Mother’s call for penance and reparation for sins.
As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once remarked, "It is a long-established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship." The same may be said for matters concerning either Holy Days of Obligation or fast days. What our forefathers held sacred should remain sacred to us in an effort to preserve our catholicity not only with ourselves but with our ancestors who see God now in Heaven.
It is available in English, Spanish (La Guía Completa del Ayuno y Abstinencia en el Catolicismo), and Polish (Wszechstronny przewodnik katolickiego postu i wstrzemięzliwośći)!
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4 comment(s):
I agree with looking at tradition and trying to follow as much as possible. One question I have is how did they celebrate feasts of Saints during Lent?
Well pre 1955 the feast of saints would commonly be observed in Lent instead of the Lenten feria. But that would not abrogate fasting and/or abstinence requirements eo ipso.
Does your book address the history of any “exceptions”? I’ve been pregnant and or nursing consecutively for the last 3+ years and likely for many more to come. I have been advised not to fast but feel like I’m missing out on the spiritual graces of fasting and am wondering if it has always been that pregnant/nursing women not just don’t have to but should not fast?
Yes it does! And so does this article of mine. Fear not!
https://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2023/02/who-is-exempt-from-law-of-fasting-or.html
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