The Catholic Church, in an attempt to help Catholics do at least a minimum during Lent, asks all Catholics to fast and abstain from meat on certain days. Fasting means to limit food to one full meal a day with the possibility of two smaller meals (not adding up to a full meal) as needed. Abstinence means not eating meat, although fish is allowed. Catholics are asked to observe all days of fasting and abstinence which is one of the precepts of the Church.
Catholics 14 years of age or older are to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. Catholics between ages 14 and 59 are also to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. If one’s work or health makes it inadvisable to fast or abstain from meat, they are not obligated to do so.1
Freedom – the word that has been misunderstood and has become the peril of many. Our society is getting steeped in this so-called freedom so much that it is used to support surgeries that reassign gender, homosexuality, and abortion. The warped arguments are convincing many. Easter is a celebration of man’s liberation from death and lent is a season for the preparation of Easter. Freedom is something that we ought to reflect upon in Lent but in a sort of different way.
People have come to view freedom from the negative angle, that is, the lack of restraint. Some see freedom as the ability to do whatever one wants. But people do not always desire what is best for themselves. The second greatest commandment according to Jesus is, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt. 22:39). Before his passion, he gave a new commandment, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Juxtaposing these two statements, I draw that some people do not love themselves.
Freedom comes with a responsibility to do what one should which should agree with reason and faith. This way freedom leads to happiness and not corruption.
In life we keep resisting the pull of gravity. Where the effort to resist is absent, life is also absent. Something similar happens in our spiritual life. As human beings, we are pulled to sin and the force can be powerful. We are spiritually alive when we struggle against the tendency to sin. The human being lives fuller by rising above the pressures that tend to pull him to a lower form of existence. The human being is not himself when he allows himself to be carried along the path of evil or he surrenders himself to iniquity.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, a day in which Catholics have ash imposed on their foreheads. This ash is a reminder of our mortality, our fragility, and our need to be redeemed by the mercy of God.
Lent is an opportunity for freedom – to free ourselves from the shackles of sin. It is a season in which we are to make serious effort to be in union with God by avoiding sin. Fasting and abstinence are encouraged during Lent. A life of self-denial and detachment from all things serving as obstacles to spiritual growth is for the Christian. So fasting and abstinence is a form of self-denial that leads us to perfection.
Reference:
- Andrez Ortiz, Lent in the Catholic Church, About Catholics, www.aboutcatholics.com/beliefs/lent-in-the-catholic-church, Accessed February 23, 2016.