Meatless Fridays

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Dinengdeng

This is the 2nd article that I have written for the Philippine Online Chronicles and it is all about the practice of most Christians during lent: Meatless Fridays.

Christians are obliged by the Church to do penance and seek forgiveness from sins. A common form of penance is eschewing meat on Fridays. Catholics in particular, are enjoined to observe ‘Meatless Fridays’ as prescribed by the Canon Law not just during the Lenten season but all year round. Many Catholics think that rules of abstinence have since been relaxed: that the meatless prescription applies only for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Wrong! This is what the new Code of Canon Law issued in 1983 says:

‘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.’

Why meatless?

By abstaining from meat, we are giving up the most pleasant as well as the most nourishing food. As most of us are meat lovers it is a sacrificeto banish meat from our diet. But if we go crazy or sick without meat, then we might go for another form of penance.

Abstinence is not only refraining from eating meat but renouncing other pleasures of the senses as well. The essence here is sacrifice.  The renunciation of something we like very much.  This may be in the form of less TV, less movies, less parties, less cigarettes , less beer,  less sex.  The possibilities are almost endless.

 Read the whole article here: Faultless Fridays ... and meatless, too.