The Typical Lent Question

[pippo buono]

Why are we allowed to eat fish on Friday?

 

Besides what Jim Gaffigan says?

http://youtu.be/oulinMjB_vo

[pippo buono]

Nevermind... I think I finally found it.

 

What I've mostly read is that Pope Paul VI's Paenitemini (Apostolic Constitution on Penance) defines the law of abstinence as forbidding "the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat" (III, 1). The latin word for meat or flesh (carnis) linguistically does not include fish, but rather land based animals.

 

What I find more interesting is going to what seems to be a basis for Paenitemini, which is in the Summa Theologia, IIa-IIae, Q.147, 8. St. Thomas comes from a tradition that forbid meat and the products of land animals, including eggs and milk. In this sense, it seems that Paul VI already has lightened the law of abstinence. But Objection 2 shows that the concern for fish being equally tasty as meat was already present. The objection reads:

Further, some fish are as delectable to eat as the flesh of certain animals. Now "concupiscence is the desire of the delectable," [...]. Therefore since fasting which was instituted in order to bridle concupiscence does not exclude the eating of fish, neither should it exclude the eating of flesh meat.

 

 

St. Thomas replies with the following:

In the institution of fasting, the Church takes account of the more common occurrences. Now, generally speaking, eating flesh meat affords more pleasure than eating fish, although this is not always the case. Hence the Church forbade those fast to eat flesh meat, rather than to eat fish.

 

So it looks like St. Thomas agrees with Jim Gaffigan: we eat fish on Friday because it's less tasty.

[BarbTherese]

Nowadays, fish is a delicacy and most especially here in Australia at reasonable prices for really fresh fish of great varieties.  To me Fridays (also Mondays and Wednesdays for me personally) are days of penance as with the whole of Lent to some degree or other.  What gets me is the absolute abundance of meatless recipes that are decidedly non penitential and recommended for Fridays in Lent.  I think that this looses the intrinsic meaning of Fridays and especially during Lent.

[pippo buono]

At least how St. Thomas explains it, that would go against the spirit of it.

[BarbTherese]

At least how St. Thomas explains it, that would go against the spirit of it.

 

 

Agree