Do we have to fast today for the Ember fasts?

[QuisUtDeus]

I've actually had a bad dream about that once. Its strange. I was in FedEx Field (Redskins Stadiun) and some "priest" in ugly vestments told us he would still offer Mass, but we didnt need to come anymore. I started yelling at him and woke up very angry.

 

Hopefully you're not a mystic and that wasn't a vision of the future.

[creimann]

Notice creimmann around sooooo nice to see that baldheaded avatar again, really missed ya creimann!

[creimann]

I think the reason why there is Friday Abstinence (from meat) is first of all that this is the last vestigial remnant of stricter fasting which included all milk-meats. Dom Gueranger (The Liturgical Year: Lent, introductory pages, writes of the general issue thus:

Thus did the decay of piety, and the general deterioration of bodily strength among the people of the western nations, infringe on the primitive  observance of fasting. To make our history of these humiliating changes anything like complete, we must mention one more relaxation. For several centuries, abstinence from flesh-meat included likewise the prohibition of all animal food, with the single exception of fish, which, on account of its cold nature, as also for several mystical reasons, founded on the sacred Scriptures, was always permitted to be taken by those who fasted. Every sort of milk-meat was forbidden. (Etc. Emphasis added.)

There you can see the general tendency of making fasting less binding, and a reason for that, along with a basis for permitting fish in particular.

[KevinM]

Aren't the Ember days this Wednesday / Friday /Saturday , since it will be the first Wednesday after the first full week following Sept 14th?

 

Thanks,

 

Kevin

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

No, it's just the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday following September 14, not one full week.

[Paul]

Aren't the Ember days this Wednesday / Friday /Saturday , since it will be the first Wednesday after the first full week following Sept 14th?

 

They're, until 1962, always during the liturgical Third Week of September, which is the Sunday from September 12-18 - which works out as the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after September 14. The 1960 Rubrics changed this a bit, but I don't have the Rubric with me, and I'm not sure whether there's a possibility of the pre-1955 and 1962 Missals disagreeing, or whether it's just a matter of removing the September 14 reference. I do know that the computation of weeks was changed - it used to be the First Sunday was the Sunday closest to the 1st, while the 1961 Breviary says the First Sunday is the first actually in the month.

[Paul]

If I'm remembering the Rubric correctly, the 1962 Missal states the Ember Days are during the Third Week in September (which means the third week fully within the month). Formerly, Ember Wednesday was the Wednesday after the 14th, so it could be anywhere from the 15th to the 21st, and the former Rubric on weeks meant that this was also always the Third Week.

 

Because of the change, the two calendars differ three out of seven years: if September 1st is Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, then the Ember Days are a week later on the 1962 calendar, with Ember Wednesday as late as the 24th. If someone has an SSPX or FSSP Ordo from 2003 or 2004, you might want to check this.

[KevinM]

Footnote:
¹ Note that these September Ember Days must follow a full week after Holy Cross Day (14 September).

Am I misreading something? I got this from this site.

 

AMDG

 

Kevin

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

You're right. The 1962 Missal changed it to the week following Sept. 14.

[Paul]

Footnote:
¹ Note that these September Ember Days must follow a full week after Holy Cross Day (14 September).

Am I misreading something? I got this from this site.

That seems correct according to the 1962 Missal, if by "full week" you mean "the week after the week which contains the 14th", but that's not the traditional usage, which allows Ember Wednesday to fall as soon as September 15.