Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Third. On Causes Excusing from Fasting
687. Who are excused. In order that someone be excused from fasting, a grave cause proportionate to the gravity of the precept is required. The causes excusing from fasting can be reduced to three: a. weakness of body; b. poverty; c. grave labor, whether of body or of mind.
- Because of weakness of body are excused:
a. The sick, convalescents, the weak; likewise those who cannot take sufficient nourishment at one time; moreover all who from fasting suffer notable headache or dizziness, or who without supper cannot sleep for a notable part of the night.
b. Pregnant and nursing women, even if on account of robust strength they do not seem to suffer detriment from fasting; to these physicians add women who are suffering the menstrual flow.
c. Those who suffer from nerves: for according to the judgment of physicians the "nervous" must take food in smaller quantity but more frequently; hence those whose disease (nervousness) is notable are excused from the law of fasting, or at least there is sufficient reason for seeking and granting dispensation.
d. The aged, that is, sixty-year-old men from the beginning of the sixtieth year, and fifty-year-old women from the beginning of the fiftieth year of age. For when old age begins, the faithful are excused from fasting; but according to things as they commonly happen, old age begins in men from the sixtieth year, in women, who grow old more quickly just as they flourish sooner in age, from the fiftieth year of age. This same age also excuses from fasting which is observed by force of a rule in religious orders or which is undertaken from vow, unless something else is expressly established.
a. The reason why old age excuses from fasting is this: because on the one hand in old age nature and strength are diminished and therefore need restoration more often; on the other hand the aged, because of weakness of strength and because of heat gradually failing, cannot digest sufficient food all at once and at the same time, and therefore need food more frequently.
b. Since the aged are of themselves excused from fasting, not only those who in fact are weak in strength are not bound to fast, but also those who seem robust enough to bear the fast: for this is accidental.
Because of poverty all those are excused who do not have the means from which they may procure for themselves a full meal, such as those begging door to door, and those who do not have such foods that one full meal would suffice for their nutrition: for bread and legumes or other foods of little nourishment do not suffice for the just nutrition of the whole day.
Because of bodily labor are excused: workers who exercise a mechanical art with great labor of body: farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, weavers, stonecutters, sailors, porters, runners, shoemakers, cooks who must prepare several foods for many persons, etc.; and indeed these (by reason of custom) are excused of themselves, so that not even those must fast who, because of sufficiently robust strength, could fast without grave inconvenience, because they exercise an art which of itself is joined with great weariness of body.
Travelers, if the journey cannot be deferred without inconvenience or if it has already begun, and indeed: a. a longer journey on foot, that is, of four or five hours, of itself excuses from fasting; and if the road is hard, or the weather harsh, or the traveler weak, even a shorter journey excuses. b. Those who travel by horse or carriage are excused if they are on a journey for several days; a journey of one day excuses only if it must be made with great weariness. c. But a journey by railways, since it is not laborious, can excuse only accidentally, namely if the travelers lack suitable nourishment.
a. Those who by reason of bodily labor are excused from fasting are not bound to fast on those days on which they interrupt labor if they do this for only one or another day: for they are excused so that they may restore and preserve the strength necessary for their next labors. But in order that those who exercise an art joined with grave labor may be judged actually excused, they must at least ordinarily labor through the greater part of the day: for if ordinarily they were occupied in labors of this kind for only two or three hours, they would not be excused of themselves.
b. No one is bound, in order that he may be able to fast, to interrupt labors incompatible with fasting which he ordinarily exercises, even if he does not need the labor, since he is excused from fasting even because of labor that is not necessary: for the Church does not intend to impede the faithful from their ordinary occupations.
c. Nevertheless it is not lawful, on a fast day, without just cause, that is, merely for the sake of recreation, to undertake labor incompatible with fasting which otherwise is not exercised, unless this is done very rarely; but it is lawful for a useful end, even if not necessary. Therefore it is lawful on a fast day to undertake a pious pilgrimage if there is a special reason for undertaking it on that day, for example, a special spiritual utility of the pilgrims; but if a special reason of this kind is absent, the pilgrimage must be deferred to another day.
Note. It cannot be admitted that all those are of themselves excused from fasting who exercise serious labor, especially bodily labor: for there are many workers and craftsmen whose occupation is not so laborious that they are excused of themselves from fasting; of this kind are painters, scribes, typesetters and others laboring in printing houses who do not themselves have to turn the press, barbers, tailors, servants and maids who perform only lighter domestic services. Yet because of the great weakness of men at the present time, many of these, especially in towns, are accidentally excused from fasting.
- Because of mental labor, which is often joined with bodily weariness, are excused:
Lecturers of sciences, even if they have a lecture only once in the day, when they need great study and labor to prepare the lectures, but not those who deliver lectures already prepared before and often repeated.1
Professors of grammar and schoolmasters who must teach daily for four or five hours with great weariness.
Students who through the greater part of the day (for about nine or ten hours) attend schools and seriously apply themselves to studies.
Preachers who daily or almost daily have a sermon; and a fortiori missionaries, who are exercised in missions with still greater weariness. But generally preachers are not excused who have a sermon only three or four times in the week, unless they undergo notable inconvenience in observing the fast.
Confessors are excused if they cannot hear penitents and at the same time fast without grave inconvenience; but this ordinarily happens only if they receive confessions almost through the whole day, that is, for seven or eight hours.
All these, however, are not excused of themselves, but only accidentally, namely if by reason of some circumstance aggravating the ordinary labor (weakness of the person, special gravity of the labor, etc.) they could not, while fasting, perform their offices. Yet they easily have sufficient reason because of which they can seek and receive dispensation.
Note. 1. All who judge themselves excused from the law of fasting or abstinence, because of the danger of hallucination, are to be warned that, where the excusing cause is not altogether manifest, they should seek the declaration of the pastor or physician, and that they should seek dispensation where, because of the lightness of the cause, a declaration alone does not suffice.
Ecclesiastical superiors should not be difficult in granting dispensation; but let them remember that this reason alone, that if dispensation is denied the precept will be violated, is not a sufficient cause for granting dispensation. Nevertheless the faithful who seek dispensation can ordinarily be presumed to have some reasonable cause, such as weakness, wearying labor, etc.; indeed a founded fear lest, if dispensation is not granted, those weak in faith and in Christian life be alienated from the Church itself constitutes some cause for granting dispensation.
Confessors should beware lest they warn those who are in good faith and are foreseen not to obey about observing the precept of abstinence and fasting to the very point of moral theology, lest, once warned, they commit formal sins and be frightened away from the sacraments.
Not every difficulty which follows from fasting excuses from observing it, but only grave external difficulty, which is not joined to the very nature of the precept: for some weakening of the body and some headache, likewise difficulty in exercising one's duty somewhat greater than usual, necessarily follow from fasting, and therefore belong to inconveniences internal to this precept.
1 St. Alphonsus, n. 1094.