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No Time for Fasting

3 Jul, 2010  Apologetics, Catholic Homeschool, Free Books, Religion

Ok it’s not even near the liturgical time of the year that calls for all good Catholics to fast. However, if I wait until then to submit this information it may get buried in the myriad of other information out there on fasting. I am talking about a must read excerpt from Faith of our Fathers which I found in Ebook form. I believe that every Catholic parent that was raised after 1960 (most of us.) Owes it to themself to read what the Archbishop says about fasting in 1917.  Then pass it on to their children. If more Catholics understood why Catholics fast there would be like putting the icing on a cake or chocolate syrup on plain ice cream.  Knowledge of why we are Catholic is such a wonderful thing. For the full ebook download click here. This e-book is free.

Excerpt from…

Faith of our Fathers

By James Cardinal Gibbons Archbishop of Baltimore

Published 1917

“…On Good Friday He was crucified on Mount Calvary, and thus purchased for us redemption by His death. Hence Jesus exclusively bears the titles of Savior and Redeemer, because

“there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.”⁷ ”He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins, … and by His bruises we are healed.”⁸

We are commanded by Jesus, suffering and dying for us, to imitate Him by the crucifixion of our flesh, and by acts of daily mortification. “If anyone,” He says, “will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”⁹

Hence we abstain from the use of flesh meat on Friday—the day consecrated to our Savior’s sufferings—not because the eating of flesh meat is sinful in itself, but as an act of salutary mortification. Loving children would be prompted by filial tenderness to commemorate the anniversary of their father’s

death rather by prayer and fasting than by feasting. Even so we abstain on Fridays from flesh meat that we may in a small measure testify our practical sympathy for our dear Lord by the

mortification of our body, endeavoring, like St. Paul, “to bear about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of  Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.”¹⁰

The Cross is held in the highest reverence by Catholics because it was the instrument of our Savior’s crucifixion. It surmounts our churches and adorns our sanctuaries. We venerate

it as the emblem of our salvation. “Far be it from me,” says the Apostle, [Paul] “to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”¹¹ We do not, of course, attach any intrinsic virtue to the Cross; this would be sinful and idolatrous. Our veneration is referred to Him who died upon it.

It is also a very ancient and pious practice for the faithful to make on their person the sign of the Cross, saying at the same time: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Tertullian, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, says: “In all our actions, when we come in or go out, when we dress, when we wash, at our meals, before retiring to sleep, … we form on our foreheads the sign of the cross. These practices are not commanded by a formal law of Scripture; but tradition teaches them, custom confirms them, faith observes
them.”¹² By the sign of the cross we make a profession of our faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation, and perform a most salutary act of religion…”

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