Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. Abstinence, as an act, is usually the refraining fromthe use of certain kinds of food or drink. Fasting is therefraining for determinate periods from all use of food. Toillustrate: a Catholic abstains when he refrains fromeating meat on Friday; but he fasts when he refrains fromfood and drink altogether for a time, or, in a less complete senseof the word fasting, when he limits himself to one full meal a day.Fasting is useful for: (a) controlling the lusts of the flesh; (b)freeing the mind from bodily concerns so that it may bettercontemplate heavenly things; (c) penancing the body in satisfactionfor sins. That fasting is a virtuous act is manifest fromthese excellent uses that it serves.
2. Fasting is an act of the virtue of abstinence.
3. Fasting for the purposes indicated above (preventing,and atoning for sin, and raising the mind to contemplation) is aduty imposed by reason, and therefore by the natural law. Thepositive precepts of fasting which determine its manner and extent,and the timesappointed for it, come from the Church whichdecides what is becoming and profitable, on this point, for herchildren.
4. The Church imposes the duty of fasting in general, butshe makes exceptions for certain classes (the aged, the infirm,children), and grants dispensations in particular cases when thisis necessary or advisable.
5. There is a notable fitness in the fasts imposed by theChurch. The intensive and prolonged fasting-season of Lent comesevery year, and the ember days and fasting vigils of certain feastskeep the faithful constantly in the spirit and practice of fasting,and yet without imposing great hardship upon them. And a richsymbolism attaches to the seasons of fasting, especially to theforty days of the lenten fast.
6. The eucharistic fast is the fast observed beforereceiving our Lord in Holy Communion. The ecclesiastical fast isthe ordinary fast from food (not drink) imposed by the Church forcertain days and seasons. The essence of the ecclesiastical fastseems to lie in the fact that only one full meal is taken on afasting day.
7. The time for the one full meal permitted on a fastingday is determined by church law, even as the fast itself is sodetermined. The time of this meal is set for noon or the later partof the day, not the forenoon.
8. The strict fast of an earlier day, when the faithfulwere required to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods(butter, cheese), has been much mitigated in later times, and forgood reasons.
"As the flesh is nourished by food, so is man supported by prayers"
St Augustine
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"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"A person who rails at God in adversity, suffers without merit; moreover by his lack of resignation he adds to his punishment in the next life and experiences greater disquietude of mind in this life."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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