• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Aside from its penitential significance, Lenten abstinence can promote healthy eating. (CNS photo by Ann Piasecki, Catholic Explorer)

Question Corner: Weekly Friday sacrifices: You mean they never went away?

March 9, 2023
By Jenna Marie Cooper
OSV News
Filed Under: Commentary, Lent, Question Corner

Q: While answering a question about vegetarians and vegans during Lent, you mentioned the requirement for continuing a penance on Fridays, even if not abstaining from meat. Can you explain why? My understanding is that our penance helps us remember Good Friday every week, to draw us closer to our Lord.

A: Our obligation to do some form of penance on Friday is identified in Canon 1250 in the Code of Canon Law, which tells us that “The penitential days and times in the universal church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.” The preceding Canon 1249 gives us a definition of “penitential days” as days “on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence.” And as Canon 1249 puts it, the faithful have special days of penance “in order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance.”

You are correct that Fridays have a penitential character because of Good Friday. Because Friday is the day on which Jesus offered his life for us on the cross, every Friday is an especially suitable time to draw closer to the mystery of his passion and death. By practicing self-denial in spiritually healthy and appropriate ways — whether that be giving a favorite food, or sharing our resources with the needy, or taking time out of our daily lives for prayer — we recall and imitate Jesus’ own self-denial in how he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,” and “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).

Traditionally, a penitential self-denial (often referred to as “mortification” in many classic older works of spirituality) was also understood as an aid to personal growth in holiness. We all know that muscles grow stronger through exercise. In a similar way, a habit of making small sacrifices when the stakes are relatively low can prepare us to choose the right thing in more serious situations. In other words, those who are spiritually “in shape” through the spiritual training of regular penances and the practice of self-denial are spiritually stronger and thus better able to resist temptations as they arise.

In terms of specifics, canon law further tells us that: “Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday” (1251), and that local bishops’ conferences also have the power to “determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.”

Here in the United States, in 1966 our own bishop’s conference issued a “Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence,” which reiterated the requirement for Catholics in the United States to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent. But this same document — noting that “changing circumstances, including economic, dietary and social elements, have made some of our people feel that the renunciation of the eating of meat is not always and for everyone the most effective means of practicing penance” — formally permitted Catholics to “substitute other penitential observances” on non-Lenten Fridays. It is worth noting, though, that the document did urge Catholics to freely choose to continue the tradition of year-round Friday abstinence from meat, even though less strictly required.

Jenna Marie Cooper, who holds a licentiate in canon law, is a consecrated virgin and a canonist whose column appears weekly at OSV News. Send your questions to CatholicQA@osv.com.

Read More Commentary

‘Annunciation’: Salvation and the words of the air

Fully entering into the Triduum

Question Corner: Jesus became man so I could become God?

The mental health crisis crosses all boundaries and ages

Hold the tuna casserole; pass the crab cake this Lent

Question Corner: Do we relax our Lenten fasts on Sunday?

Copyright © 2023 OSV News

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Jenna Marie Cooper

Our Sunday Visitor is a Catholic publisher serving millions of Catholics globally through its publishing and communication services.

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

‘Annunciation’: Salvation and the words of the air

Fully entering into the Triduum

Question Corner: Jesus became man so I could become God?

The mental health crisis crosses all boundaries and ages

Hold the tuna casserole; pass the crab cake this Lent

| Recent Local News |

Catholic Charities’ William J. McCarthy Jr. named Loyola’s Business Leader of the Year

Sister Joan Cooper, O.S.F., dies at 94

Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history

Sister Elizabeth Ellen Kane, O.S.F., dies at 81

RADIO INTERVIEW: Dining with the Saints

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Vatican envoy warns UN General Assembly racism mutating and ‘reemerging’ globally
  • ‘We all need to do more’: House hearing demands action over Nicaragua regime’s anti-Catholic persecution
  • Notre Dame Cathedral reopening date announced as reconstruction on its famous spire wraps up in eastern France
  • AI and the meaning of life: Tech industry turns to religious leaders
  • Movie Review: ‘John Wick: Chapter 4, a festival of fatality’
  • Pope calls European bishops to be prophetic voices for peace
  • En la frontera de México y EE.UU., defensores de migrantes que buscan asilo hacen un llamado a la acción
  • At U.S.-Mexico border, migrants’ advocates call for action on U.S. asylum policy
  • Jewish parents challenge California ban on special education funds at religious schools

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED