Article 1: Days of Fasting and Abstinence

1. The days of fasting and abstinence (ieiunium cum abstinentia, ieiunium plenum) are:

a) ASH WEDNESDAY AND THE FRIDAYS AND SATURDAYS OF LENT.—This is a modification of the former law, which made all the days of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter, with the exception of Sundays, days of fasting and abstinence.¹

¹ F. X. Funk in Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen, Vol. I, pp. 241 sqq.; Kellner, Heortology, pp. 88 sqq.; Villien, History of the Commandments of the Church, pp. 254 sqq.

The early Christians seem to have fasted on all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year.

This pious custom is mentioned in the Didaché², in the Shepherd of Hermas³, and in the writings of Tertullian.⁴ That fasting should form an essential feature of the commemoration of the Passion was indicated in Christ’s words: “Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.”⁵ The days when the Divine Bridegroom was taken away were held from the first to be those in which Jesus lay in the grave,—Good Friday and Holy Saturday. These days were nearly everywhere kept as obligatory fast-days of the strictest kind.⁶ About the middle of the third century in many places men fasted the entire Holy Week on water, bread, and salt, while on the last two days they ate nothing whatever. Soon the fast came to be extended over several weeks. In the fourth century the forty days’ fast is a well-established institution. The fifth canon of the first Nicene Council mentions Lent as a common observance, though the Festal Letters of St. Athanasius bear witness that it was not yet kept everywhere. The fare on fast-days consisted of water and broth made with flour, fruit, oil, and bread. The Lenten fast must have commenced on the Monday after Sexagesima.⁷ St. Leo the Great in his sermons explains the object and significance of the Lenten fast. He says Lent was appointed in order to prepare the souls of the faithful for a fruitful commemoration of the mystery of Easter. It was to be a time for purification and sanctification,—a time, first of all, for doing penance for past sins and breaking off sinful habits; a time also for the exercise of all virtues, especially almsgiving, and reconciliation. Fasting was to form only a part, though the most essential part, of this penitential preparation, and Leo declares it to be incumbent upon all, not only the clergy, but the laity as well. He regarded the forty days fast before Easter as an Apostolic institution.⁸ The term became fixed, no doubt for the reason that Jesus had fasted forty days in the desert.⁹

² Doctr. XII Apost., c. 8.

³ Past. Herm., Simil. V, c. 1.

⁴ De Ieiunio, c. 1, 10, 14.

⁵ Matt. IX, 15.

⁶ Tertullian, op. cit., II, 13, 14.

⁷ Villien, op. cit., pp. 261 sqq.

⁸ St. Leo, Serm., XLVII (al. XLVI), c. 1; Serm., XLIV (al. XLIII), c. 1 (Migne, P. L., LIV, 294, 285, 287).—Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 147, art. 8, ad 3.

⁹ Kellner, Heortology, pp. 88 sqq., 94 sq.

Originally, it seems, the forty days’ fast (quadragesima) was taken to mean the days before Easter as a whole, Sundays excluded. This gave for a period of six weeks only thirty-six fast-days, and, where Saturday was not kept, only thirty. To rectify this mistake, the number of actual fast-days was increased to forty, with the result that, in the West, the beginning of Lent (caput ieiunii) was put back four days. In the East, where only five days in each week were fast-days, it had to be put back still further. There Lent began eight weeks before Easter, and since the Saturdays (Holy Saturday excepted) were not fast-days, extended actually over forty-one days instead of forty. Abstinence from flesh meat began on the Monday after the eighth Sunday before Easter, corresponding to the Latin dominica sexagesima, which is called “the Sunday of Abstinence from Flesh Meat.” From the following Sunday, called “the Sunday for Eating Cheese,” milk products (lacticinia) were forbidden.¹⁰

¹⁰ Kellner, Heortology, pp. 95 sq.

b) The Ember Days are days of sacred fasts (angariae), dedicated to the Lord every three months, and corresponding to the four seasons of the year, from whence they derive their Latin name, Quattuor Tempora. The Ember tides are peculiar to the Western Church. In Rome they were observed from the earliest times, so that Leo the Great was inclined to regard them as of Apostolic origin. He connects them with the four seasons of the year¹¹ and says that during these days we should give due honor and praise to God for the gifts He bestows on us to support our bodily life, abstain from luxuries, and be generous to the poor. The Ember tides in general, especially that of December, St. Leo connects directly with agriculture and the harvest,¹² and the earliest liturgies contain prayers for a good crop.¹³ Dr. Kellner thinks that these indi- cations give us the clue to the origin of the Ember fasts, and says they were most likely heathen practices, which were taken over by the Church and given a Christian form and character.¹⁴

¹¹ Serm., XIX (al. XVIII), c. 2: “The [fasts] have been distributed through the circuit of the whole year so that the law of abstinence might be assigned to all seasons.”

¹² Serm., XVI, c. 2: “And when the gathering of all the fruits has been completed,” etc.

¹³ Morin quotes passages from the Leonine and Gelasian sacramentaries; see Migne, P. L., LV, 153 sqq.

¹⁴ Heortology, p. 184.

Pope Gelasius commanded that ordinations of priests and deacons should be held on all Ember tides and in the middle of Lent, whereas in St. Leo’s time ordinations took place at Easter only.

In the earliest service books, the Ember fasts were called, respectively, ieiunium primi, quarti, septimi et decimi mensis, and fell in March, June, September, and December. It does not appear that the original object of the Ember days was to petition God to raise up worthy priests in His Church, for this purpose is not mentioned until after the popes had appointed the Ember days as fixed times for ordinations.¹⁵

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 186.

For a long time it remained uncertain in which week of the months in question the Ember days should be observed. At Rome they were kept in the first week of the month.¹⁶ Elsewhere the practice differed, until Gregory VII¹⁷ put an end to all doubts and variations by establishing the present usage, which is as follows: Ember Days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the third Sunday of Advent (ieiunium hiemale); the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first Sunday of Lent (ieiunium vernum), the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Pentecost (ieiunium aestivum); the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which falls on the third Sunday in September (ieiunium autumnale). This arrangement may be remembered by means of the following verses:

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 189.

¹⁷ Micrologus, c. 24; cfr. Villien, History of the Commandments of the Church, pp. 234 sqq.

After Lucy, Ashes, after the Holy Spirit and the Cross,
the following Wednesday gives the four seasons.

c) THE VIGIL FASTS are those kept on the days preceding Pentecost, the Assumption of the B. V. Mary, All Saints, and Christmas.¹⁸

¹⁸ C. I. C., can. 1252, § 2.

A vigil originally was the watch vigiliae which used to be kept on the nights before important feasts. The practice of spending such nights in public prayer is at least as old as Christianity itself. Vigils are mentioned by Tertullian,¹⁹ and the Apostolic Constitutions²⁰ tell of one maintained till “cock-crow” on Holy Saturday. St. Jerome²¹ defends the custom against Vigilantius, admitting, however, that the watches were sometimes accompanied by gross immoralities. It was probably these and other abuses which led to the discontinuance of the practice.

¹⁹ Ad Uxorem, II, 5.

²⁰ Const. Apost., V, 10.

²¹ Epist., CIX; Adv. Vigilant., n. 9.

The obligation of fasting on the vigils did not begin till later. Villien says it would be difficult to give the precise date of its origin.²² Perhaps the linking of the fast with the vigil is an extension of the ancient fast by which the faithful prepared themselves for the celebration of Easter. Both the discipline of the watch and the motive of the fast are indicated in a synodal decree of Auxerre, adopted in the last third of the sixth century. The principal object of the vigil, says this decree, is prayer in preparation for the approaching feast; the fast is its necessary accompaniment, so to speak. The fast is observed because the watch is kept in church and to enable the faithful to communicate at Mass.²³

²² History of the Commandments of the Church, p. 236.

²³ Op. cit., p. 241.

For quite a while the tendency was to increase the number of vigils on which fasting was obligatory. Besides the vigils of Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, and the Assumption, there were those for most of the feasts of the Apostles.²⁴ To them custom or episcopal constitutions in course of time added other diocesan or provincial vigils. It is likely that the feast of the patron saint was everywhere preceded by a vigil. To the feasts of the Apostles were ultimately added those of St. Lawrence, and St. John the Baptist, and, in the Frankish countries, that of St. Martin of Tours.

²⁴ Op. cit., p. 247.

Of late the tendency has been rather to diminish the vigils. In the United States only four were observed (before Christmas, Pentecost, the Assumption, and All Saints), the same that have now been made universal by the New Code.²⁵

²⁵ C. I. C., can. 1252, § 2.

2. The law of abstinence from flesh meat (abstinentia, ieiunium semiplenum) obliges on all Fridays of the year except when Christmas or some other holyday of obligation falls on that day.²⁶

²⁶ C. I. C., can. 1252, § 3.

Formerly Wednesday and Friday were widely observed as days of fasting and abstinence in commemoration of the death and burial of Christ. Regino of Prim inserted into his canonical collection a text of Rufinus, which says that the fasts of Wednesday and Friday must not be dispensed with except in case of grave necessity,—Wednesday, because it is the day on which Judas decided to betray our Lord; Friday, because on that day Christ was crucified.²⁷

²⁷ De Eccl. Disc., Append. I, c. XVII; Villien, op. cit., p. 283.

Later the practice declined. Fagnani, following the teaching of Innocent IV, affirms that, according to the common opinion, the Friday fast is merely of counsel, not of precept, like abstinence from flesh meat on Wednesday.²⁸

²⁸ In c. “Consilium,” n. 23; Villien, op. cit., p. 276.

The discipline of the Saturday abstinence outside of Lent, which survived in some countries until the promulgation of the New Code, began in the West at a comparatively late date.²⁹ The Code marks its end.

²⁹ Villien, op. cit., p. 287.

Abstinence from flesh meat on Friday is obligatory upon all Catholics who are not excused by sickness, by the nature of their work, or by a dispensation, as granted, e. g., in the “Bula de Cruzada.”³⁰

³⁰ For an account of the privileges of the Bulla Cruciata see Ferreres, Compend. Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 771 sqq. and the same author’s book, La Nueva Bula de Cruzada Española y sus Extraordinarios Privilegios, 3rd ed., Madrid 1915.

READINGS.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 147, art. 5 sqq.—St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. III, n. 1004 sqq. (ed. Gaudé, II, 384 sqq.).—A. Linsenmayer, Entwicklung der Kirchl. Fastendisziplin, Munich 1877.—F. X. Funk, “Die Entwicklung des Osterfastens” in Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen, Vol. I, pp. 241 sqq.—V. Ermoni, Le Carême, 2nd ed., Paris 1907.—K. A. H. Kellner, Heortology, London 1908, pp. 88 sqq.—G. Berthelet, Traité Historique et Moral de l’Abstinence, Rouen 1731.