Friday, April 21, 2023
Friday of the Second
Week of Easter
Psalm 27, verse 1:
1The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be AFRAID?
This verse is and should be our declaration of faith. Let us commit it to memorization and repeat it to ourselves daily or when fear and doubt rears its ugly head within our depths. Doing this will help us trust the Lord and develop a true relationship of love with the Trinity through prayer. God will become our sanctuary and we will be able to put away our fears and rest in the arms of God.
We will no longer have to pretend that we are not afraid for we will trust the Lord with our whole being offering our lives, families, time and treasure with total peace. We will be able to sleep and awaken easily. The old Navajo adage will no longer apply to us; you cannot wake a person who is pretending to be asleep; due to our faith in God.
Through our
reliance in Him we will be able to say with King David, “I believe that I shall
see the bounty of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD with
courage; be stouthearted and wait for the LORD.” (Psalm 27:13-14).
Fitness Friday
· Try the St. Peter
Universal Man Plan
Friday’s
during the season of Easter-Fast or not?
It’s well known that Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays
during Lent, and that Ash Wednesday and Good Fridays are fast days, in which we
cut back on how much we eat. But what about the rest of the year? Should we be
abstaining and fasting on other Fridays? And in particular, what about right
now, during the season of Easter? It’s easy to sound legalistic in answering
these questions, so let’s begin by laying something of a biblical and spiritual
framework:
First, fasting isn’t optional in Christianity. Jesus says that
“when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure
their faces that their fasting may be seen by men.” Instead, “when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men
but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
reward you” (Matt. 6:16-18). So there’s clearly a wrong way to fast (doing it
for the acclaim of men), but that’s not an argument against fasting. Notice
that Jesus says not “if you fast,”
but “when you fast.”
Second, we need fasting. God summarizes the
story of Israel by saying that “it was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the
land of drought; but when they had fed to the full, they were filled, and their
heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me” (Hos. 13:5-6). That’s true of
not just Israel, but all of us. When things are going poorly, we realize our
weakness and (hopefully) cry out to God for help. When things are going well,
on the other hand, it’s easy to buy into the illusion that we can take care of
ourselves just fine without God. For this reason, Moses warned that “when you
eat and are full, then take heed lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt” (Deut. 6:11-12). Fasting is one of the concrete ways in
which we allow ourselves to be shaken out of this forgetfulness and
self-delusion.
Third, fasting is a practice of the Church, not just
a private devotion. It’s great to decide for personal reasons that you need to
fast for a particular period of time. But it would be a mistake to think all
Christian fasting is like that. When Jesus says “when you fast,” he doesn’t use
the second-person singular, as if it were up to each of us to decide when and
where to fast. Instead, he says “you” in the plural, like “when you all fast.”
We see concrete instances of local churches calling fasts in places like Acts
13:1-3 and Acts 14:23.
Fourth, fasting on Fridays has always been part of
Christianity. It’s easy to think of fasting on Fridays as a modern thing. But
it actually goes all the way back to the time of the apostles. A first-century
Christian text called the Didache instructs,
“Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and
fifth day of the week; but fast on the fourth day and the Preparation.” In
other words, one of the ways that Christians were setting themselves apart from
groups like the Pharisees was that the Pharisees would fast on Mondays and
Thursdays, and Christians would fast on Wednesdays (the fourth day of the week)
and Fridays (the day of Preparation). This wasn’t an empty cultural marker,
like wearing pink on Wednesdays. It was a reminder of the death of the Lord
Jesus on Good Friday, the day of preparation (Mark 15:42; John 19:31). In the
modern era, this has taken the form of abstaining from meat on Fridays, rather
than a full-fledged fast. But the reasoning is the same. As the NCCB (now USCCB)
puts it, “Catholic peoples from time immemorial have set apart
Friday for special penitential observance by which they gladly suffer with Christ
that they may one day be glorified with Him. This is the heart of the tradition
of abstinence from meat on Friday where that tradition has been observed in the
holy Catholic Church.”
Fifth, the joy of Easter trumps the fast. St. John the
Baptist’s disciples asked Jesus why his own disciples didn’t fast, and he
replied, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they
will fast” (Matt. 9:15). That’s the crux: our fasting shouldn’t interfere with
rejoicing in the presence of Jesus. During the Octave of Easter (the eight-day
period from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday), we celebrate the bridegroom
returning to us from the grave, so it’s fitting for a
time to set all of our fasting and abstaining aside. Likewise,
there are certainly particularly important feast days (called solemnities) in
which we relax these disciplines in order to highlight the feast.
So where does all
of that leave us? The Church’s instructions are clear. Catholics who are able to
do so* are required to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent (can. 1251),
but we should also treat the entire season of Lent and every Friday throughout the year as
penitential (can. 1250).
As the USCCB explains, “Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is
in the entire year.” Just as every Sunday is a mini-Easter, every Friday is a
mini-Lent, preparing us for Sunday and Easter.
How do we
mark that mini-Lent, outside the season of Lent itself? It depends a bit on
where you live. In the United Kingdom,
Catholics are required to abstain from meat throughout the year. In Canada, Ireland,
and the United States,
you can substitute something else for meat (like alcohol). But as the American
bishops explained, the point of this was not to abolish Friday penance, but to
urge Catholics to come up with “other forms of penitential witness which may
become as much a part of the devout way of life in the future as Friday
abstinence from meat.”
All of
this is relaxed entirely if “a solemnity should fall on a Friday” (can. 1251).
That always includes the first (but only the
first) Friday after Easter, since the Universal Norms specify
that “the first eight days of Easter Time constitute the Octave of Easter and
are celebrated as Solemnities of the Lord.” For the rest of Easter season,
we’re back to Friday penances. Perhaps the best way to understand why is to
consider the counsel of St. Ignatius of
Loyola, who says in his rules for discernment, “Let him who is in
consolation think how he will be in the desolation which will come after,
taking new strength for then.” The Fridays of Easter keep
our Easter highs from getting so high that we forget the cross, just as the
Sundays of Lent keep our Lenten lows from getting so low that we forget the
Resurrection.
So this
season, let us keep that spirit of Friday penance, without losing an ounce of
our Easter joy!
*Those who should not fast or abstain are
exempted, including young kids, pregnant/nursing moms, and people who are suffering from
illness. Fasting and abstaining
from meat should never endanger your health or the health of your child.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART
FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE-PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER THREE-THE LIFE OF PRAYER
SECTION TWO-THE LORD'S PRAYER
Article 1 "THE SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE GOSPEL"
2761 The
Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel." "Since
the Lord . . . after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask
and you will receive,' and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to
his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer [the Lord's Prayer] is
said first, as the foundation of further desires."
PRAYERS AND TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Memorare
(in time of need)[1]
Daily
Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: For
the intercession of the angels and saints
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Make reparations to the Holy Face
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