Precepts of the Church

Catechism of the Catholic Church

CCC #2041-2043

The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor:

• The first precept ("You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor") requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.
• The second precept ("You shall confess your sins at least once a year") ensures preparation for the Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, which continues Baptism's work of conversion and forgiveness.
• The third precept ("You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least [once] during the Easter season") guarantees as a minimum the reception of the Lord's Body and Blood in connection with the Paschal feasts, the origin and center of the Christian liturgy.
• The fourth precept ("You shall observe the days of fasting and abstinence established by the Church") ensures the times of ascesis and penance which prepare us for the liturgical feasts and help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart.
• The fifth precept ("You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church") means that the faithful are obliged to assist with the material needs of the Church, each according to his own ability. The faithful also have the duty of providing for the material needs of the Church, each according to his own abilities.

Summary forms

1. You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.

2. You shall confess your sins at least once a year.

3. You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season.

4. You shall observe the days of fasting and abstinence established by the Church.

5. You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church.

Even shorter:

1. Attend Mass.

2. Confess sin.

3. Receive the Eucharist.

4. Fast and abstain.

5. Donate money.

Age for Fasting and Abstinence

Canon 1250

All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.

Canon 1251

Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Canon 1252

All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence; all adults [those over age 18] are bound by the law of fast up to the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are educated in an authentic sense of penance.

Can. 1253

It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

U.S. norms for Friday penance

"Is Friday Penance Required?"

The U.S. norms are found in a document entitled On Penance and Abstinence, dated November 18, 1966, which, despite the revision of the Code of Canon Law, remains in force (as noted on the bishops’ web site: www.usccb.org/norms).

In this document, it is particularly necessary to distinguish between the language of law and the language of exhortation.

The bishops removed legal obligations while going on to exhort people to do things freely that were formerly obligatory. In this way they sought to avoid the impression that they were undermining the Church’s penitential practice.

The big legal change comes in norm 3, where the bishops state that "we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence as binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday." So the obligation to abstain from meat was terminated.

Solemnity of St. Joseph

• The solemnity trumps the Lenten law of abstaining from meat on Fridays.

Dispensation from fasting and abstinence

Can. 1245

Without prejudice to the right of diocesan bishops mentioned in ⇒ can. 87, for a just cause and according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop, a pastor can grant in individual cases a dispensation from the obligation of observing a feast day or a day of penance or can grant a commutation of the obligation into other pious works. A superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life, if they are clerical and of pontifical right, can also do this in regard to his own subjects and others living in the house day and night.

Rationales for Lenten Practices

• Fasting was and is part of the Jewish Liturgical Year.
• Yom Kippur rules for the meal after the fast--no meat?
• Moses and Elijah fasted 40 days each. Exodus 34:28 1 Kings 19:8
• 40 days of rain to cleanse the earth. Did Noah and his family fast?
• 40 years in the desert.
• John the Baptist: lived on "locusts and wild honey."
• Jesus' 40 days in the desert. What could he have eaten? Desert food?
• Jesus fasted from Last Supper until death on the Cross. (Was this the original fast before Easter?)
• Gen 2--humans seem to be meant to be vegetarians at first.
• Gen 2:16-17--Adam and Eve had to abstain from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil!
• Cain and Abel? Grain good, animal sacrifice bad? Grain more primitive?
• Fish meat is less bloody than land animals or fowl?
• 40 years in the desert: Manna first; quails later.
• Fish (ixthus) stands for Jesus, therefore "we eat nothing but Jesus"? I've never seen any ancient sources that mentioned this rationale.
• A Pope's relatives sold fish, and therefore asked for relaxation of Lenten fast so that their business would not suffer during Lent. Legend from the Middle Ages?
• Improved the diet of the poor? Suggested by a listener, but it doesn't make sense to me.

We have toned down the Lenten fast considerably from the "black fast," which required abstinence from meat, dairy products (milk, butter, cheese, cream), eggs, fowl, and fish, and was for all 40 days of Lent!

Fridays are a tiny remembrance of the old Great Fast. The East still calls the whole season of Lent "the Great Fast." They fast and abstain on Wednesdays and Fridays all through the Great Fast.

Many concessions to human weakness in the Roman tradition.

Oddities

In the Middle Ages, it was licit to eat a beaver's tail, but not the rest of it. The tail was considered fish, but not the rest of the animal. "The definition of 'fish' was often extended to marine and semi-aquatic animals such as whales, barnacle geese, puffins and even beavers. ... fake eggs could be made by stuffing empty egg shells with fish roe and almond milk and cooking it in coals."