As a Mardi Gras gift to our readers, I thought I would post for them a recipe for a real Louisiana Chicken and Sausage Gumbo [pdf][doc]. But, of course, the most important thing about today is that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and it is imperative that Catholics take the season of Lent seriously. As Iosephus observed to me one time, it isn’t sensible to have a daylong bacchanalia to introduce the season where you don’t eat chocolate. Which is why I would like to encourage our readers to listen rather to the Church, whose traditional Fast for Lent is an excellent means of mortification of the flesh. It also has the benefit of being externally prescribed: one tends to be less inclined to spiritual pride when being obedient to the Church’s ideas about what makes for a fast, rather than constructing a fast for oneself. Anyway, here is the fast. Each day of Lent, a “fast and partial abstinence,” which means: two small meals: one ~4 ounces (= a bagel, two pieces of toast); one ~8 ounces; and one full-sized meal, with meat taken only at the full meal. On Fridays, the same fast proportions, but with no meat at all — full abstinence. Simple and effective. Give it a try! (A note: women often have commented to me that they eat less than this anyway. Fine! Just, for Lent, keep it up, but make sure you do it every day, and with partial abstinence and no snacking. It’s about obedience, not losing weight. In this vein, you may also want to read Iosephus’ fine words on Fasting from last Lent.)
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Just a note on the small meals mentioned by Ambrosius: the way the Baltimore Catechism describes it, they’re sort of supposed to be optional, depending on one’s needs. If you don’t need them, you can leave them out. I’m one of those women who commented to Ambrosius that eating three meals a day, even if small, would probably increase my caloric intake. Obviously calories per se aren’t the point, but one wishes to be penetential… so for my Lenten fast I’ll generally have just one very small meal (maybe a granola bar or an apple), and one normal meal. If I’m doing something unusually physically strenuous some day (i.e. hiking), I’ll add the second small meal.
Of course the danger is that this deliberate diminishment will lead one to pride, but I don’t really think so in this case, since the adjustment is merely intended to put me on a level with my larger, hungrier brethren who are doing the same thing. Just a thought.
Here is an excerpt from a book by Fr. Faber, about the “Devotions which are often performed by souls loving God, on the days of the Carnival, and at other times when worldly men usually sin against God more than usual.”
1) To abstain at that season with more than common care from some particular fault which ordinarily besets us.
2) To increase our time of prayer by adding at least half an hour to it.
3) To read longer than usual, say for an hour, some spiritual book, not one which will feed curiosity, but one which will excite pious affections toward God, such as the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Imitation of Christ and the Lives of the Saints.
4) To afflict our bodies with some new penance, or to prolong some customary penance beyond its usual time.
5) To visit the Blessed Sacrament more frequently on those days; and when we have finished our usual devotions, to excite in ourselves a feeling of compassion for our offended God, just as we visit our friends to console them and show our love to them in times of sorrow; also to shed tears, or at least to weep in our hearts, for the sins of this season, especially for the sins of those who either by reason of their condition, or of the many benefits they have received from God, ought the more scrupulously to abstain from offending Him.
6) Every time the clock strikes, to make a brief but affectionate act of sorrow for the sins of the season: this may be done in any way, walking, or at meals, etc.
7) At least three times in the day, with a most profound genuflection and with great feeling, to adore the Divine Majesty toward the four quarters of the world, in which God is at this time being so grievously offended, desiring in some sort of way to compensate by this loving adoration for the sins which are then being committed in those regions, grieving for them, and asking for their remission and for the conversion of sinners, and for that end offering up the Precious Blood and merits of Jesus Christ, which are most dear to God and most profitable to sinners. It was thus St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi obtained the conversion of many sinners.
8) To do our ordinary good works on these days more perfectly, diligently and fervently, especially those which relate to the immediate worship of God. For, as at these seasons worldly men and the servants of the devil are more diligent and fervent in offending God, it is but right that souls loving God should be at least in the same proportion more diligent and fervent in well-doing and diving worship.
9) To make an additional Communion in order to appease God, and to worship Him by our loving reparation.
10) As God is especially offended on these days by excesses in eating and drinking, to mortify our appetite somewhat more that usual either in quantity or quality.
11) As God is also especially offended at such times by immodest conversations, to agree with some pious friend to meet and spend a short time daily in spiritual conference, simply to give pleasure and consolation to our good God.
12) As men are especially guilty at such times of sinful idleness, to take more that common care about the spending of our time, so that apart from innocent and proper recreation, no part it of should pass in idleness and inutility, but rather to be more industrious that usual.
13) Those who are under any vows should on these days renew them with fresh acts of love to God, a devotion suggested to us by Our Lord’s fixing the Thursday before Quinquagesima for espousing St. Catherine of Siena.
In England the place of the Carnival would be, of course, supplied by the days following the three feasts of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. There are none whose work lies among souls who do not know by painful experience the horrors of these seasons among us; and it is so difficult to speak strongly against cheap excursions, railway trips, and such like miseries, that no remedy seems left but prayer and reparation. To pray for rain on such days sounds ill natured, yet it may hinder multitudes of sins. Many a ruin of modesty and innocence dates from a cheap trip, and many a soul has been shipwrecked on the harmless river between London Bridge and Rosherville.
According to the current regulations of the Church: Under the pain of mortal sin, all those who are 14 on up have to abstain from meat, (and soup or gravy made from meat,) on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all the Fridays of Lent. All those from 18 to 60 have to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, also under the pain of mortal sin.
On days of fast, only one full meal is allowed. Two other meatless collations may be taken, but together they should not equal another full meal. Eating between meals is not allowed; but liquids such as milk and fruit juices are allowed.
Traditionally during Lent: all the days of Lent (excepting Sundays) are days of fasting. Meat (and soups or gravy made from meat) is allowed once a day, at the principal meal, except on Fridays, Ash Wednesday, and Holy Saturday.
When health or ability to work would be seriously affected, the fast does not oblige.
With all due respect to Fr. Faber, I’m not sure this approach would necessarily be healthy. Having a super-Lent before Lent actually begins seems like it would skew the sensibilities that the Church is trying to develop. It might also easily become a temptation to pride: “other men are reveling, so I will set myself apart with particularly great spiritual feats.”
Of course one should not observe Mardi Gras, or any day, by setting out to sin. But there are any number of more wholesome and innocent pleasures which might be enjoyed. I ate a particularly large amount of ice cream today, and enjoyed the evening by watching a basketball game with Robertus, Iosephus, and Catherina Oxoniensis.
” It might also easily become a temptation to pride: “other men are reveling, so I will set myself apart with particularly great spiritual feats.”"
Well, the same thing could be said about any fast at all. One could easily say that the traditional fast is an occasion of sin since it is not required by the Church any more.