The following comes from a Feb. 13 posting on the Facebook page of the San Francisco archdiocese.
LUNAR NEW YEAR DISPENSATION: Archbishop Cordileone has announced that the faithful who wish to celebrate the Lunar New Year on Friday, February 16, and to eat meat, may transfer their obligation of abstinence to the following Wednesday. Otherwise, the normal Lenten regulations apply, including that everyone fourteen years of age and older is bound to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, the Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday. Join us for the Archdiocesan Chinese New Year Mass on February 24 at 2:30 pm in St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In a Feb. 14 posting from the same page:
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Holy Season of Lent. ARCHBISHOP CORDILEONE’S Lenten message encourages us in our increased attention to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. “I would invite our good Catholic people, then, to see the season of Lent as a teaching tool of the Church that instructs us on how we can live virtuous Christian lives all throughout the year. We redouble our efforts during Lent, in a very focused way, in order to develop our spiritual stamina for living our faith well throughout the year…” May you have a blessed Lent.
San Jose Catholics who want to eat meat on Friday are not asked to transfer the abstinence, according to a California Catholic story on February 9.
Applauding this effort by the Archbishop. It seems to me that a Christian who is also Asian who honors both their heritages, and actively engages their obligation the following Wednesday, has probably given more thought to the purpose behind the regulation than the rest of us who just do it because somebody told us to do it. Your thoughts?
Isn’t Lunar New Year a multiple day celebration? I thought it went for a couple weeks. I don’t what foods traditionally go with the celebration? Is there something that has to be eaten?
Good questions, anonymous. I don’t have the answers. Perhaps others do.
We do it because it is a sin not to do it. I do not really know the purpose of it, except as a prescribed penance for our sins. It is mandatory. We see how the non-meat Fridays went when they were no longer mandatory.
I agree. I remember the ‘old’ days in the 60s when, in the US, every Friday throughout the year was meatless. I was amazed when I left Chicago to attend University in Toronto. There ‘meatless Fridays ‘ was nominaly optional, but generally ignored.
Mike,
It is my understanding according to EWTN, that the practice never changed. Now if you do eat meat on a Friday, you must do something charitable on that day to make reparation.
I was told after Vatican II, one must fast on Friday, but the choice was mine. Priests told many of us we could give up a food, a drink, a movie or something else we really enjoyed. I did that for awhile but returned to giving up meat. If I accidentally eat meat, I give up both meat and something else for the rest of the day. The main idea is that we sacrifice something and not gorge ourselves on steak abalone, etc.
No, abstinence from meat on Fridays outside of Lent is no longer obligatory in the United States. You do not have to substitute another act of penance on that day because no act of penance is mandated. The bishops’ conference has urged American Catholics to observe every Friday as a day of penance, but that exhortation does not create an obligation to do so.
Seems like a very pastoral approach to his flock. I like to think of abstaining from something as more of an invitation from God to follow more closely his Son, not just something else that I “can’t do” because I’m Catholic. It is good to subject our physical bodies to the will of God and not just our carnal appetites, it heightens spirituality and we are only here for a little while.
With all due respect to EWTN, what is their authoritative source on this matter?
https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/us-bishops-pastoral-statement-on-penance-and-abstinence.cfm
A good summary from two years ago that still applies:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/06/1-july-2016-to-abstain-or-not-to-abstain.html
Thanks for posting that. I did not realize that people had to fast every day in Lent. I don’t remember doing that. Might have just been how we lived anyway.
Many Chinese treat New Year’s Eve as the huge blow-out meal with a variety of meat, veggies, and seafood. New Year’s Day, in the morning, at least, is traditionally vegetarian for many. Much of the food is prepared well in advance, for one is not supposed to use sharp things on New Year’s Day. Why not prepare a series of tasty veggie/seafood ideas if it is known that the holiday coincides with a day of abstinence? Give and take, but don’t forsake.