Fasting and Abstinence

Austerity.—The two chief forms of austerity in food and drink are fasting and abstinence.

(a) Nature.—The natural fast is the omission of all eating and drinking, or the omission to receive into the stomach anything whatever that has the nature of food, drink or medicine. The moral fast is the omission to take a certain quantity of food that could be taken without intemperance. Abstinence is the omission to take a certain quality of food, such as meat or eggs.

(b) Kinds.—Fast and abstinence are in respect to duration either perpetual (e.g., the abstinence from meat of the Carthusians) or temporary (e.g., the abstinence for Fridays and other appointed days of the faithful generally); either voluntary (e.g., a fast which one assumes under private vow) or obligatory (e.g., the fasts and abstinences prescribed in the general or particular laws of the Church). The ecclesiastical fast and abstinence will be spoken of later when we treat of the precepts of the Church and Holy Communion.

The Excellence of Fasting and Abstinence.—(a) Lawfulness.—Fasting and abstinence are acts of virtue, for they subdue the unruly flesh, fit the mind for divine contemplation (Dan, x. 3 sqq.), satisfy for sins (Joel, ii. 12), and add weight to prayers (Tob., xii. 8; Judith, iv. 11; Matt., xvii. 20). The greatest men of the Old and New Testaments practised fasting—Moses, Samson, Elias, John the Baptist, and St. Paul. Our Lord Himself fasted forty days and forty nights (Matt, iv. 2). St. Paul, therefore, numbers fasting with other virtues: “In fastings, in knowledge, in chastity” (II Cor., vi. 5). Examples of abstinence are Daniel avoiding meat (Dan, i. 8 sqq.) and Eleazar who died rather than eat forbidden swine flesh (II Mach., vi. 18 sqq.). Abstention from solid or liquid nourishment is not a virtue, however, if practised from purely indifferent or evil motives, for example, merely in order to recover health through diet, or to train for an athletic contest, or to preserve shape and beauty, or to commit suicide, or to simulate virtue, or to profess false doctrines or if carried to extremes. The forty-day fasts of Moses, Elias and of Our Lord are for our admiration, but very few are able to imitate these examples.

(b) Obligation.—Fasting and abstinence in general are obligatory under natural law, because without them certain necessary ends cannot be obtained. They are remedies for past sins and preservatives against future sins; and, as sin is the common state of man (James, iii. 2; Gal., v. 17), it would be presumptuous to neglect these antidotes. Under the positive law fasting and abstinence have been prescribed in detail, and this was necessary since it is the duty of the Church to determine the time, manner and other circumstances of natural duties of religion which the natural law itself has not determined.