Reply to Catholics : Why not meat on Fridays during lent?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Catholics : Why not meat on Fridays during lent?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]You are using terms in their present sense that had very different meanings in the past. Abstaining from meat on Fridays actually began in the first century of Christianity because, as some response noted, it was a symbolic gesture of sacrificing flesh as Christ did on the cross. When the word "meat" is used in that context, it refers to flesh meat which at that time meant the flesh of warm-blooded mammals. The Latin word for this is "caro" and is the root of such words as carnivorous (meat eating). The word "caro" was NOT used to refer to the meat of cold-blooded animals like fish, amphibians, and reptiles -- they were considered different and, thus, were permissible to eat on Fridays. In other words, what we call meat today is much more inclusive than when the tradition began almost 2000 years ago. It's not surprising, then, that the tradition isn't as sensical to us in the present as it was to the people of much earlier times.

Catholics and some other Christian branches kept the meat-free Fridays throughout the year until the mid 1980s, when the observance was changed to Fridays in Lent (and Ash Wednesday, as well).

Bishops throughout the world were able to (slightly) alter the rules to fit problems unique to their territory. The famed Michigan muskrat permission actually began in the late 1700s in the land around the Detroit River when the coldest months made it difficult to gather enough fish. Pushing the rationale, it was decided that the muskrat was in the water enough to be kind of like amphibians and were allowed. In recent years, when that permission was being reviewed, it was decided that the exemption lasted over 300 years and should not be changed. One of the bishops in Michigan during that review noted that eating muskrat was, truly, a great sacrifice. LOL!

It should be noted, too, that the Church never mandated fish be eaten -- just that flesh meat should not be consumed. That's why it is permissible to eat snake, frogs, etc. which, in our modern parlance, would be considered meat but was not considered such as the tradition evolved.

Words have different meanings in different periods of history so we need to keep that in mind when trying to explain things like this.

(Sorry if I came off as a professor but, as you can see, there truly is a reason the rules are what they are.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics