Congregation of Christ the King

111 Pelican Street
Lafayette, LA 70507

Facebook YouTube Flocknote Phone Email

Devotions

- Resources

The Holy Season of Lent
The Lenten Discipline
The Lenten discipline consists of three separate parts:

1. Corporal or External Fast - including the law of fast and abstinence, abstinence from certain food, drinks, and amusements, i.e. music, and parties during Lent. These points of fast should be stressed today especially with the mania of entertainment besetting our society.

2. Spiritual or Internal Fast - consists of abstinence from "all evil" - sin. Saint John Chrysostom taught that the "value of fasting consists not so much in abstinence from food but rather in withdrawal from sinful practices." And Saint Basil the Great explains: "Turning away from all wickedness means keeping our tongue in check, restraining our anger, suppressing evil desires, and avoiding all gossip, lying and swearing. To abstain from these things - herein lies the true value of fast!"

3. Spiritual Change - achieved by the practice of virtues and good works. This must be the main objective of our fasting. The Fathers of the Church insisted that during Lent the faithful attend the Lenten church services and daily Mass.

Corporal or External Practices

a. Take less of what you like and more of what you dislike at meals today.
b. Take nothing to drink between meals.
c. Do not use seasoning on your food today.
d. Do not use any sweeteners with your food or drinks today.
e. Avoid listening to music at all today.
f. Take nothing to eat between meals today (if not bound to fast).
g. Avoid any TV or videos; instead read the Passion of Christ in your Bible or missal.
h. Take only one helping of each item at meals today.
i. Say an extra Rosary.

Spiritual or Internal Fast Practices

a. Don't do any unnecessary talking. Instead, say little ejaculations throughout the day.
b. Exercise your patience today in all things.
c. Don't make any complaints today.
d. Restrain any anger, and go out of your way to be kind to the person who caused your anger.
e. Don't be distracted with someone else's business.
f. Avoid any gossip today. Instead say an extra Rosary to overcome this great fault.
g. When asked to do something extra, do so with a joyful and pleasant attitude today.
h. Speak in a pleasant tone to everyone today.
i. Avoid using the phone today.
j. Tell the truth in all your dealings today.
k. Avoid any vanity or self-seeking today.

Spiritual Practices (virtues and good works)

a. Practice humility today in all your actions.
b. Be generous today; help someone in need.
c. Look for ways to be helpful throughout the day.
d. Do a job that needs to be done without being asked.
e. Be courageous; walk away from any impure situations today.
f. Don't be idle at all today. Always be doing something for others or for your spiritual growth.
g. Go out of your way today to help or talk to someone who is usually difficult.
h. Volunteer for an extra job today.
i. Say an extra Rosary today for the conversion of a sinner.
j. Visit someone who is sick or lonesome today. Offer to say the Rosary with them.
Source: Your Lenten Calendar, Mancipia Press, St. Benedict Center
The Obligation and Practice of Fasting
The uniform norms for fast and abstinence adopted in 1951 by the bishops of the United States were somewhat modified at their November 1956 meeting. The regulations on this matter now reads as follows:

I - The Days of Fast and Abstinence

1. Complete abstinence is to be observed on all Fridays of the year, Ash Wednesday, and the Vigils of Immaculate Conception and Christmas.

2. Partial abstinence is to be observed on Ember Wednesdays and Saturdays and on the Vigil of Pentecost.

3. Days of fast are all the weekdays of Lent, Ember Days, and the Vigil of Pentecost.

II - Things prohibited by the law of fasting

1. The law of fasting forbids more than one full meal a day. Meat may be taken at the principal meal on a day of fast except on Fridays, Ash Wednesday and the Vigils of Immaculate Conception and Christmas. Two other meatless meals, sufficient to maintain strength, may be taken according to each one's needs; but together they should not equal another full meal.

2. Eating between meals is also forbidden; but liquids, including milk and fruit juices, are allowed. The usual amount of cream in coffee or tea is permitted. Milk is understood as ordinary or homogenized, but does not include such combinations as malted milk or milk shakes. However combinations based on skimmed milk and a coloring or special flavoring such as "chocolate milk" are rather a drink than a food and, therefore, permissible. The use of eggs and milk foods is permitted on all days on which there is both fast and abstinence. Wine, beer, etc., are not considered nourishing drinks, though they may be contrary to the spirit of Lent. In order that a drink may not be injurious a bite of food may be taken with it.

3. When health or the ability to work would be seriously affected, the law does not oblige. One who is not obliged to fast may eat meat as often as he wills on days when fasting alone is prescribed. In doubt concerning either fast or abstinence, one should consult his confessor or pastor.

4. To interrupt the principal meal for more than half an hour without reason would be a venial sin; should the interruption last more than an hour it would be seriously sinful.

5. In determining the amount that one may take for breakfast and lunch the following must be regarded: a person's physical constitution, the kind of work he does, the length of the fast and the severity of the climate. In general, a person may eat enough to enable him to do his work well and to continue the fast without considerable detriment to himself.

6. If one either deliberately or by mistake has eaten two full meals on a fast day, one can no longer observe the fast and therefore, he may eat to satiety again.

III - Things prohibited by the law of abstinence

1. The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat and soup or gravy made from meat.

2. On days of partial abstinence meat and soup or gravy made from meat may be taken only at the principal meal. These may not be taken at all on days of complete abstinence.

3. The prohibition extends only to the flesh of mammals and birds, including the fat, blood, marrow, brains, heart, liver, etc. Lawful foods are fish, frogs, turtles, snails, mussels, clams, oysters, crabs, etc. As seasoning one may use rendered lard not only to prepare food but also as a spread. Likewise lawful are margarine, and meat extracts that have lost the taste of meat or broth, e.g. gelatine; likewise gelatine products of animal origin, but not soup cubes that contain meat ingredients.

4. He who has once eaten meat on a day of abstinence may still observe the law and, therefore, he is not free to eat meat again the same day.

IV - Subjects of the Laws

1. The law of fasting obliges all who have completed their twenty-first year and who have not yet begun their sixtieth year (C. 1254).

2. The law of abstinence obliges all who have completed their seventh year until the end of their life (C. 1254).

V - The Gravity of the Obligation

1. The laws of fasting and abstinence in themselves oblige gravely. Slight violations of them are only venial sins.

2. One would certainly not sin mortally by eating about two ounces of food outside the meals allowed on a fast day; but it would be seriously sinful to take more than four ounces no matter whether taken at once or at different times of the day. Neither would it be mortally sinful to eat less than an ounce of meat on a day of abstinence; it would be gravely sinful to take two ounces. Slight violations of the law of abstinence do not coalesce to form a grave sin, unless one intends from the beginning to consume a large quantity.

VI - Cessation of the Obligation

1. Individual dispensations from the laws of fasting and abstinence may be had from one's pastor, who may dispense not only individuals but also individual families.

2. Physical or moral impossibility excuses from the law of fasting.
2a. Ill or convalescent persons in delicate health, and those that are neurotic or who are subject to bad headaches or who cannot sleep when fasting are excused therefrom; pregnant or nursing women, and probably women during the period of menstruation; the poor, who have not enough to eat at one time to satisfy their hunger; hard-working people, e.g., farmers, millworkers, stone masons, etc., provided they actually work a great part of the day. They are also excused even if now and then they do not have a hard day's work. Furthermore, professors, teachers, students, preachers, confessors, physicians, judges, lawyers, etc. are excused if fasting would hinder them in their work. One may not undertake hard work merely for the purpose of evading the law of fasting.

3. The following are excused from the law of abstinence:

3a. The sick and convalescent, women who are pregnant and who require meat nourishment. Flesh meat may also be necessary for women who are nursing a child. Work-men doing unusually hard labor, especially work that gives one an appetite, as, at the furnaces, in the mines, etc.; poor people who have not sufficient Lenten food.

3b. An invitation to eat out where one would be expected to eat forbidden food may not be accepted. One could, nevertheless, accept such an invitation if the refusal would mean a great loss to himself or be gravely offensive to the one inviting, or if it would create enmity. The same can be said of him to whom unlawful food is unexpectedly served at a banquet.

3c. If a meat meal has been prepared by mistake on a day of abstinence it may not be eaten if Lenten food is easily available and the meat can readily be kept for another day. If the meat prepared in such a case is of such a small quantity that it would not be forbidden, under mortal sin, the circumstance alone of having prepared it by mistake would excuse the eating of it from venial sin.

3d. If the father (or another member of the family) is excused (or dispensed) from abstaining the others are nevertheless obliged to observe the law. Since it is often morally impossible to prepare separate meals, the whole family in this case is excused.

Note. The exhortation of the bishops "to attend daily Mass, to receive Holy Communion often, to take part more frequently in exercises of piety, to give generously to works of religion and charity, to perform acts of kindness towards the sick, the aged and the poor, and to practice voluntary self-denial especially regarding alcoholic drink and worldly amusements, and to pray more fervently, particularly for the intentions of the Holy Father" during periods of fast and abstinence should be understood as an integral part of the formula. Public festivities during Lent and Advent are forbidden by the law of custom. In determining the sinfulness of these one must consider the time (e.g., Good Friday), the kind of entertainment, the opinions of conscientious Christians and the possibility of scandal.

Source: Moral Theology, Jone and Adelman
Suggested Devotions
Suggested Reading