Fasting
**********
During the season of Lent, Catholics are required to fast. Fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday to the 59th Birthday [i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday] to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk).
Those who are excused from fasting. Besides those outside the age limits, those of unsound mind, the sick, the frail, pregnant or nursing women according to need for meat or nourishment, manual laborers according to need, guests at a meal who cannot excuse themselves without giving great offense or causing enmity and other situations of moral or physical impossibility to observe the penitential discipline.
Fasting is much more than a set of rules designed to keep us in line. Many Catholics chose to practice fasting all year around or at other times throughout the year. They do this because there is a much deeper meaning to fasting. Most things in the secular world tend to separate us from God. Fasting is something that many Catholics feel brings them in unity with God. After a time, fasting can even be considered a blessing and a way of praying and communicating with God. It reminds us of the poor and hungry in the world and helps us to put our lives in the proper perspective.
|
|
CATHOLICISM
MODERN ISSUES
|
