The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1922-03-04

ii
THE PERIOD or FASTING SINCE
APOSTOLIC DAYs--UTMOST Sc.
VERIFY IN FORCE IN EARLY
TlMEs-MoDERN TENDENCY is
TOWARD LENlENcY-SPlRlT OF
PENANcE MUST EVER REMAIN.
The Lenten Regulations announced
annually on Quinquagesima Sunday in
our churches present a fairly cnmpli- |
Gated series of legal obligations and |
customary observances, of exempted
days and persons, of the appropriate
times and quality of repasts, and of
suggested voluntary pieties, writes
Mgr Henry. Meanwhile, the memory
of many who hear them read out in
tions, Of law and Of pious practice in
the different Localities where they have
lived or sojourned and even during the
years they have passed in one and the
same locality.
Why should such differences in law
and practice exist? Why should there
be so many exemptions, indults. dis
pensations? Well, for one thing, a
long continued custom may silently
acquire the binding force of law.
Again. the Church is both wise and
a gentle mother. She will not deny to
individuals or to communities wide
margin for spontaneous activities OF
devotion and self-denial. On the 9th
er hand, she moderates excessive zeal
| which may easily run into fanaticism
and may unduly prejudice the health
of individuals or the general we'll
being of communities. She recognizes
| both the spiritual need of fasting as a
lspecies of modification and, withal,
the peculiar difficulties encountered
by her children because of varying
climates, localities, conditions OF
health or age, and the like.
Tendency Toward Leniency.
The tendency of the Lenten Regu-
lations seems always, however, to.
wards greater leniency, especially in
America. We live in the land of the
strenuous life the land of the vie
intense" as one French writer trans
lated the phrase. More titan a half
lcentury has elapsed since Bishop
Kenrick, our greatest American theo
llogian sensed our physical handicaps
in fasting and assigned the poor quail
ity of nourishment in our vegetables
(that is, our most prominent variety
of fasting foods) as a reason fol
granting dispensations the more cas-
lily. Perhaps the conjecture of Ken
rick (who is neglected by us, al
though quoted by Roman moralists OF
today as an excellent authority
helped towards the exemption grant
ed in recent years to working mel
and their families in the United
States-an exemption which is obvi
ously of far-reaching effect.
In this highly developed industrial
age, the strenuous life is not confined
. to America. Everywhere, and fol
many decades past, history has hee1
witnessing how tfthe individual with
ers and the statesis more and more.
The Church is q .inlercifnl and corsid
, crate Mother and isenms, to haze tax
en- account of the multiplying Difficult
ties that confront life, liberty and TIT
pursuit of happiness.
The obscure history of the Lentel
Fast seems to suggest that it was al
. evolution of what had been a brie
one-day or forty-hours fast preceding
every Sunday, into the forty-days' fas
preparatory to Easter, the centra
feast of the year. Howbeit, fas
preparatory to-. Easter dates back al
, most into Apostolic times. In tn
closing years of the second century
| the length of the fast, some person
giving it one day, others forty hours
others several days. The one-day Gas
was that of Good Friday. The forty
= hours fast was in memory of the fort
hours during which Our Saviour Ia
in the tomb--when, in the mystica
phrase of Christ, the bridegroom wa
no longer with His Church (Matt
= 9:14, 15): 'Then came to him tn
disciples of John, saying: Why do w
y and the Pharisees fast often, but tn
! disciples do not fast? And Jesus sal
: to them: Can the children of tn
i bridegroom mourn, as long as tn
;. bridegroom is with them? But tn
days will come, when the bridegroom
shall be taken away from them. an
then they shall fast"
: Symbolism That Shaped Fast.
!. Doubtless the symbolism of thes
f forty hours, as well as that OF tn
q forty days during which Our Savior
v tasted in the desert, shaped the limit
4 of time for Lent as we know then
The fixing of this length is ascribe
Q to the Council of Meaux in the mint
o lcentury, and the observance gradual
+ became universal. Before that tim'
q however, there were many variation
4 In the fifth century, the Lent in Rom
i was for six weeks; in parts OF tn
n East, six, or seven, or eight week
9 Not every week OF these was fas
Il ing week, and in some places Satuida
;. and Sunday land at Rome, in the thir
o Icentury, even Thursday were excep
ed. With all the excepted days n
moved, the observance of thirty-si
fasting days seemed to be fairly gel
leral in the time of st. Gregory tn
lGreat (590-604).e and this perio
formed a mystical itithing of the yea
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