Fasting

Abstinence, as an act, is usually the refraining fromthe use of certain kinds of food or drink. Fasting is therefraining for determinate periods from all use of food. To illustrate: a Catholic abstains when he refrains from eating meat on Friday; but he fasts when he refrains from food and drink altogether for a time, or, in a less complete sense of the word fasting, when he limits himself to one full meal a day. Fasting is useful for: (a) controlling the lusts of the flesh; (b)freeing the mind from bodily concerns so that it may bettercontemplate heavenly things; (c) penancing the body in satisfaction for sins. That fasting is a virtuous act is manifest from these excellent uses that it serves.

Fasting is an act of the virtue of abstinence.

Fasting for the purposes indicated above (preventing,and atoning for sin, and raising the mind to contemplation) is a duty imposed by reason, and therefore by the natural law. The positive precepts of fasting which determine its manner and extent,and the times appointed for it, come from the Church which decides what is becoming and profitable, on this point, for her children.

The Church imposes the duty of fasting in general, but she makes exceptions for certain classes (the aged, the infirm,children), and grants dispensations in particular cases when thisis necessary or advisable.

There is a notable fitness in the fasts imposed by the Church. The intensive and prolonged fasting-season of Lent comes every year, and the ember days and fasting vigils of certain feastskeep the faithful constantly in the spirit and practice of fasting,and yet without imposing great hardship upon them. And a richsymbolism attaches to the seasons of fasting, especially to the forty days of the lenten fast.

The eucharistic fast is the fast observed before receiving our Lord in Holy Communion. The ecclesiastical fast isthe ordinary fast from food (not drink) imposed by the Church for certain days and seasons. The essence of the ecclesiastical fast seems to lie in the fact that only one full meal is taken on a fasting day.

The time for the one full meal permitted on a fastingday is determined by church law, even as the fast itself is so determined. The time of this meal is set for noon or the later partof the day, not the forenoon.

The strict fast of an earlier day, when the faithful were required to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods(butter, cheese), has been much mitigated in later times, and for good reasons.