Lenten fast

[Amadeus]

Amadeus omnibus salutem plurimam dicit,

I have a few questions about the lenten fast. If you'd be so kind as to help me, I'd be grateful.

1) For breakfast I usually eat two slices of bread with butter. Is that ok or too big? What about 1 bowl of cereal?

2) For lunch, can you eat "seconds"? I mean, I don't usually fill the whole plate and at the end of the meal I'm still hungry.

3) What about desserts? Allowed or no? I'm gonna try and not eat desserts this Lent season, but my birthday is a few days away, and I'd like to eat a piece of the birthday cake. Can I do it immediately after lunch?

4) Saturdays and sundays we usually drink soda with lunch. Is that ok or should we drink water only?

5) What recommendations do you have for dinner (around 8 pm)? I sometimes eat the breakfast cereal at this time or a cup of yogurt and a small bread. Quidnam dicitis? Bene an prave ago?

Thanks for your replies.

Valete!

[Paul]

The only specific rules are that fasting means one main meal and two smaller meals which together do not equal the main meal.  Desserts are fine, although giving them up is a good penance. The idea is to give something up, and by feeling hungry but denying the body food, we can also deny sin when we're tempted.

[Amadeus]

What if the stomach starts eating itself, does thad count as a meal?

[GrumpyTroll]

Can anyone tell me what should be the main meal for a student who gets up at 6am to be at school at 8am, and whose lessons often finish at 6pm? Should it be the breakfast or the lunch? And what if I have a test from 4pm to 6pm?

[aquinas138]

Can anyone tell me what should be the main meal for a student who gets up at 6am to be at school at 8am, and whose lessons often finish at 6pm? Should it be the breakfast or the lunch? And what if I have a test from 4pm to 6pm?

The law doesn't specify when the main meal is to be taken, so I would take the main meal at whatever time best maintains your strength (physical and mental), which is the purpose of the two smaller meals.  This can differ significantly from person to person, so you have to exercise your own judgment.  You just have to maintain sufficient strength to fulfill your duties.  I wouldn't scruple too much over it.

[GrumpyTroll]

I was asking from a purely practical viewpoint.

I have thought about it, and it appears to me that a normal breakfast, a normal lunch and no dinner is best for me, given that my breakfast is smaller than my dinner.

[Dryden]

 

Am I understanding correctly--when it's said that the two small meals together cannot equal the main meal, that means, the specific main meal taken by that person on that day?  Meaning that if my main meal is a feast of Louis XIV, I can have fairly substantial stuff for the two collations, but if I have a relatively small main meal then the two collations must be very small indeed?  I'm aware that a feast of Louis XIV would violate the spirit of the fast--I'm just trying to ascertain whether I understood correctly that the size of the two small meals are relative to whatever each individual takes as his main meal, not a set standard. 

 

 

[Clare]

I'm hopeless at fasting. I probably eat more during Lent than the rest of the time, because I'm constantly mindful of fasting, and therefore food!

I probably don't eat enough anyway, and I have MS, so I kind of play it by ear, and don't strictly stick to the rules. 

 

That's my excuse anyway!

 

 

Clare.

[Paul]

Am I understanding correctly--when it's said that the two small meals together cannot equal the main meal, that means, the specific main meal taken by that person on that day?  Meaning that if my main meal is a feast of Louis XIV, I can have fairly substantial stuff for the two collations, but if I have a relatively small main meal then the two collations must be very small indeed?

Yes, keeping in mind the spirit of fasting, and that having a huge main meal just to justify two other regular-sized meals is missing the point.

Traditionally, the main meal is dinner, and was not supposed to be eaten until after Vespers, but it gradually became lunch, with the Office said through Vespers before noon. Compline was then said around 2 pm, and Matins and Lauds before bedtime. Of course, for most lay people, that's not an issue. I don't have a link to it, but one of the Congregations has said that it's permissible for the main meal to be lunch or dinner.

[Spooky7272]

I found this the other day looking up "collations" Here's the link to the whole article
 
 
 

 

Fasting also includes the depriving ourselves of  some portion of our ordinary food, inasmuch as it allows only one full  meal during the day. It was the custom with the Jews, in the old Law,  not to take the one meal allowed on fast days, till sunset. The  Christian Church adopted the same custom. It was scrupulously practiced  for many centuries. But about the ninth century some relaxation began  to be introduced in the Latin Church, and the custom, though resisted  at first, gradually spread of taking the repast after the hour of None,  that is, about three in the afternoon. By the late thirteenth century,  even this was considered too severe, and a still further relaxation was  deemed necessary – that of breaking the fast after the hour of Sext, or  after noon.

   

But whilst this relaxation of taking the repast so  early in the day as noon rendered fasting less difficult in one way, it  made it more severe in another – by evening the body had grown  exhausted by the labors of the day. It was found necessary to grant  some refreshment for the evening, and it was called a collation.  The word was taken from the Benedictine rule, which allows wine to be  taken in the evening on fast days outside of Lent. It was the custom to  read from the Collationes of Cassian during this refreshment;  thus the name. Shortly after the death of St. Karl the Great, the  Chapter of Aachen extended this indulgence to the Lenten fast. By the  fifteenth century, it was permitted to take a morsel of bread with the  wine, so the monks would not be obliged to take wine on an empty  stomach. These mitigations gradually found their way from the cloister  to the world, and eventually a second collation was permitted – so long  as the two collations together did not constitute a full meal.  Eventually, a variety of foods, besides bread, were permitted at the  collations, with the exception of meat. Beverages were permitted  between meals.