Traditional Rule of Fasting and Abstinence

As we begin Lent a friend has forwarded to me, as part of the answer to another friend's enquiry, the traditional rules on Fasting and Abstinence as well as the current ones. They are taken from the website of the SSPX in the US and can be read at http://sspx.org/en/rules-fast-and-abstinence

Almost at the same time yet another friend sent me from the same website the following comments from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on the same subject: http://sspx.org/en/archbishop-lefebvre-on-fasting-and-abstinence-1982

A while ago an Oratorian friend made the good point that dietary practices have changed with the times. In an age of central heating and better domestic insulation and similar conveniences, together with far less in the way of demanding physical work, we eat less because we no longer need to ingest so much fuel to keep warm. Add to that our concern to be healthy, to diet and to lose weight, and we end up eating normally what was formerly seen as being a fasting meal.The age of three substantial cooked meals a day, not untypical a century ago, would seem like gross over-indulgence to many today. Even where it survives in a modified form - such as an Oxford college - it is there to cater to and for young people burning up calories on the river or sports field.

Whilist thinking of how to observe Lent last Momday Peter Kwasniewski at New Liturgical Movement had a good post which is well worth looking at and entitled Things That Remit Venial Sins — The Traditional Liturgy Is Full of Them