What is the last of the great moral virtues which perfects man's life in his journey towards God?
It is the virtue of temperance (CXLI.-CLXX.).
What is understood by the virtue of temperance?
It is that virtue which keeps man's sensitive appetite within the bounds of reason so that it may not be carried away by pleasures, particularly those that refer to the sense of touch in those acts that are necessary for the conservation of bodily life (CXL. 1-5).
Of what kind of pleasures is there question?
Of the pleasures of the table and of marriage (CXLI. 4).
What name is given to the virtue of temperance when it refers to the pleasures of the table?
It is called abstinence or sobriety (CXLVI., CXLIX.).
What precisely is abstinence?
It is that which regulates the sensitive appetite with regard to eating and drinking so that this be done in conformity with what reason demands (CXLVI. 1).
Under what special form may one practise the virtue of abstinence?
Under the form that is called fasting (CXLVII.).
What is fasting?
Fasting is doing without a part of what is normally required for each day's food (CXLVII. 1, 2).
But is it not wrong to do this?
No; on the contrary to fast may be a most excellent thing, for it serves to keep concupiscence under control; to make the mind more free to occupy itself with the things of God; and to make satisfaction for sin (CXLVII. 1).
What conditions are required for fasting to be a good and excellent thing?
In this matter one must always be ruled by discretion and prudence, and there must be no danger to health, and it must not prove an obstacle to duty (CXLVII. 1, Obj. 2).
Is everyone who has attained the use of reason bound to fast?
Yes, everyone who has attained the use of reason is bound to some sort of fasting or of some privation proportionate to the demand of the virtue; but not to the fasting prescribed by the Church (CXLVII. 3, 4).
What is understood by the fasting that is prescribed by the Church?
It is a form of fasting specially fixed by the Church for those who have attained a certain age that has to be undertaken on certain days of the year (CXLVII. 5-8).
In what does this special form of fasting consist?
It consists in this, that only one full meal is allowed during the day (CXLVII. 6).
Is the time or the hour of this meal absolutely fixed?
No; for this repast may be taken at midday or in the evening.
May one take anything outside this repast?
Yes; in the morning one may take some little food, and in the evening also by way of collation (Code, 1251).
Who are bound to the fast prescribed by the Church?
All baptized Christians who have attained their twenty-first year until they have attained the fifty-ninth year completed (Code, 1254).
Given these conditions may one yet have the right not to fast?
Yes, whenever health or work manifestly forbid that one should fast; or if there be doubt on this point whenever legitimate authority dispenses from fasting (CLXVII. 4).
Who may give such dispensation?
In practice it is sufficient to ask for it from our immediate ecclesiastical superior.
What are the days on which one is bound to the Church fast?
They are all the days of Lent except Sundays; Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays of the Ember weeks; the vigils of Pentecost, of the Assumption, of All Saints, and of Christmas. If these vigils fall on Sunday one is not bound to anticipate them (Code, 1252).
Is there a law of the Church concerning abstinence distinct from the law of fasting?
Yes; and the law obliges abstaining from flesh meat and its products on all Fridays of the year, and during Lent on Ash Wednesday, and on all Saturdays to the midday of Holy Saturday inclusively; and lastly, on the Wednesdays and Saturdays of the Ember weeks (Code, 1250, 1252).
Who are bound to the law of abstinence?
All the faithful who have reached the age of seven years (Code, 1254).
(Nota Bene-The days of fasting and abstinence and the ages of those bound to them have all been altered by post-Vatican II legislation, which is summarised in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.)
Next - The Catechism of the Summa - XLIX. OF TEMPERANCE; OF ABSTINENCE, AND OF FASTING: AND OF THE SIN OPPOSED THERETO, VIZ., OF GLUTTONY (B)
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