According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, Latin Church Catholics are bound to observe fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday.
Here are some details. I am sure you know them already, but they are good to review.
FASTING: Catholics who are 18 year old and up, until their 59th birthday (when you begin your 60th year), are bound to fast (1 full meal and perhaps some food at a couple points during the day, call it 2 “snacks”, according to local custom or law – call it, two snacks that don’t add up to a full meal) on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.
Some choose not to eat at all. Some choose, in the monastic style, to have something only in the evening.
There is no scientific formula for this. Figure it out.
ABSTINENCE: Catholics who are 14 years old and older are abound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of Lent.
In general, when you have a medical condition of some kind, or you are pregnant, etc., these requirements can be relaxed.
For Eastern Catholics there are differences concerning dates and practices. Our Eastern friends can fill us Latins in.
You should by now have a plan for your spiritual life and your physical/material mortifications and penitential practices during Lent.
You would do well to include some works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal.
I also recommend making a good confession close to the beginning of Lent. Let me put that another way:
GO TO CONFESSION!
“But Father! But Father!”, some of you are saying anxiously, “What about my coffee? I can drink my coffee, can’t I? Can’t I?”
You can, of course, have coffee. No question there. You can also choose not to.
How about coffee in between meals on Ash Wednesday?
The old axiom, for the Lenten fast, is “Liquidum non frangit ieiunium … liquid does not break the fast”, provided – NB – you are drinking for the sake of thirst, rather than for eating.
Common sense suggests that chocolate banana shakes or “smoothies”, etc., are not permissible, even though they are pretty much liquid in form. They are not what you would drink because you are thirsty, as you might more commonly do with water, coffee, tea, wine in some cases, lemonade, even some of these sports drinks such as “Gatorade”, etc.
Again, common sense applies, so figure it out.
Drinks such as coffee and tea do not break the Lenten fast even if they have a little milk added, or a bit of sugar, or fruit juice, which in the case of tea might be lemon.
Coffee would break the Eucharistic fast (one hour before Communion), since – pace fallentes – coffee is no longer water, but it does not break the Lenten fast on Ash Wednesday.
You will be happy to know that chewing tobacco does not break the fast (unless you eat the quid, I guess), nor does using mouthwash (gargarisatio in one manual I checked) or brushing your teeth (pulverisatio – because once people used tooth powder – and you still can! GETCHYER TOOTH POWDER HERE! There is even one with charcoal. The ancient Romans at least the ancient Iberians under the Romans, as we know from a poem by Catullus, used chalk and urine. Yes. They did (cf. Catullus 39 about Egnatius, who apparently grinned to excess).
EVERYONE NB: Never forget the Latin proverb, risus abundant in ore stultorum… laughter/grinning abounds in the mouths of the stupid. And, in the aforementioned Cat 39, “nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est… there is nothing more tasteless than a silly laugh”. Which wasn’t lost on Peter Shaffer! If you have a risus ineptus you would do well to change your ways.).
Concerning the consumption of alligator and crocodile – HERE
I included notes also on the eating of endothermic moonfish, peptonized beef, and muskrat… just in case.
If you want to drink your coffee and tea with true merit I suggest drinking it from one of my coffee mugs. I’d like to offer an indulgence for doing so, but that’s above my pay grade.
I just happen to have available a “Liquidum non frangit ieiunium” mug! HERE
And there’s also this new choice…
3:16 isn’t just in John.
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My wife has vertigo, so she’s careful with fasting. When she converted I told her that damaging your health (especially with a family) is not what this practice is about. She’s good about abstinence, hence we are having our Valentines meal at the local Mexican place today so she can enjoy a steak quesadilla.
Knowing me I’ll have chile relleno with their homemade hot sauce. I’ll chalk up tomorrow’s heartburn to corporal mortification.
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Update:
My wife and I had a nice meal. I was tempted to get a $25 shot of Don Julio 1942 tequila but finances are of different priorities for now.
After we left the Mexican place, I told her that my Lady of Guadalupe bumper sticker is from an apparition in what is now Mexico. I then inserted my foot in my mouth and said “Our Lady appeared to St. Don Julio”.
I suddenly felt a strange pause…perhaps my guardian angel was saying “Really dude?”
I quickly corrected myself and said “I mean St. Juan Diego”.
Sometimes I wonder how my guardian angel tolerates my lapses into tomfoolery.
Would a medium-sized smoothie be considered a full meal or more of a snack? I was planning on sipping on a smoothie through the day (just one, not multiple smoothies) then having 1 meal in the evening. It’s ok if you just tell me to figure it out but why not ask?
Orual:
Would it be more efficient to have the medium smoothie split into two small smoothies so that you have them portioned as snacks and not having to worry about inadvertently having two meals instead of a meal and two snacks?
Dear Orual,
I would consider it a snack, but then again I eat rather big portions.
It’s the “sipping through the day” that seems to me the problem. The plan is to only snack twice. (Perhaps, it’s easier when what you plan to, perhaps, sip through the day just happens to be black coffee, so, sorry about that…)
Hey, friends!
How about just not eating stuff? Drinking stuff?
It’s a day, right?
And Jesus said to His followers (you) WHEN you fast, not “if” you fast.
Don’t complicate this.
If you are bound by law, then put on your big boy pants and FAST.
If there is a reason, a reasonable reason, you can’t. Then don’t.
For the love of God, work it out!
For the record, I meant “the plan is” in the sense of “we’re supposed to”.
That being said, I can’t help but feel that between “I’m exempt because (say) I need to work, so I eat full meals as usual, maybe with abstinence” and “I can fast, even without collations, and still work” there is a wide, wide middleway. I personally would prefer such a situation to be solved in a way that still qualifies as fasting in the sense the Church uses the term…
As for “it’s one day”: It’s one day the Church still commands us to fast, yes. However, in times past Ash Wednesday was not particularly special as far as fast-days are concerned, except for being the first of them; of course it is now the one the Church has not taken her command back. But to some, on a voluntary basis, it might still be the first in a row of many, in which case it is better held in a manner that can, in their state of life, be kept up continually.
“Hey, friends!
How about just not eating stuff? Drinking stuff?”
Time for my annual complaint: many of the laity spend the day at work, with their heathen overlords expecting results. Back in the day, of course, this was not the case. And even if their job isn’t particularly labour intensive, it could be particularly dangerous to be “off somewhere else” that day, especially if they happen to operate heavy machinery, drive for a living, or use power tools.
Hence why I much prefer the fast on Good Friday. And, hence, the planning. Serving two masters…
The whole collations thing just confuses matters IMHO. I surely can’t be the only person who habitually has one main meal a day, with two lighter meals/snacks amounting together to less than the main meal. Does that mean I’m fasting every day? If so, my waistline doesn’t seem to have got the message!
Father is right: just fast! Apart from the necessary exceptions (medical reasons or heavy physical labour, where fasting would genuinely risk being injurious to one’s health – people will know if that honestly applies to them), it really isn’t a big deal for one day. We ought not to be looking for loopholes, or wondering how far we can push things before they break.
I have found that fasting throughout the year on Friday’s has helped with planning and the execution of fasting of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Now that’s just me and I understand everyone is different but as Father said it’s one day and before you know it, the day is done.
I hope everyone has a holy Lent!
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