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ALICE:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

The Eucharistic fast was gradually shortened from the traditional midnight fast. It was sometime during the 1950s that the fast was originally shortened to just three hours prior to reception of Holy Communion. But as I remember being taught it was three hours from the start of Mass, not actual reception. Additionally, at that time, we were allowed only liquids. So we got up early and had a small glass of OJ and a small glass of milk before 7:30 a.m. so we could go to Holy Communion at the 10:30 a.m. Mass. My grandparents couldn't understand that since they'd been used to the midnight fast all their lives and continued to observe it until late old age.

I think this whole area was part of the shift to encouraging frequent Holy Communion begun with Pope St. Pius X. If you recall, he allowed unconfirmed children to begin receiving at the age of reason--ordinarily around the age of 7.

As I understand it, we have always been encouraged to continue the traditonal fast at each point where the minimum was made less, but there are probably not a handful of people who remember that in any given parish. And I'd bet there are people who don't even know that we have a one-hour fast these days since I've observed people eating in the parking lot on the way into church on Sundays.

But this whole shift in attitude has come about because of the shift in catechesis, too. I'd bet that the average class that prepares children for their First Holy Communion doesn't even mention the fast during the whole course of the preparation period. My children never mentioned it when we discussed what they learned in their classes and they went to a Catholic grade school. And even some religious will tell you "we don't do that anymore."

I think the real difference between Catholics and Orthodox Christians is that in the last century Catholics have lost the sense that the Liturgy and Holy Communion is something so special that we need to approach it differently than anything else we do in this life. The liturgical participation we do is no longer more than something else we stick into our busy lives. It was made easier because of concerns about the demands of modern life, but I think we missed the idea that somehow we need the time out of our busy lives to remember that this life is not all there is.

In Christ,

BOB

I am going to be very honest here and hope not to offend anyone in the process. First let me state that through conversion/ metanoia I have retunrned to the Church. The Lord has called me and I am listening and saying "yes" to whatever is asked. To just change your entire life is proof to those that knew your daily practices. With all the religion learned and being raised in a Catholic family I still knew very little. I now put the Lord first in everything I do. Obviously I need to work to care for my family but I have to say I can't answer for everyone. I pray for people to have the same experiences I have had. The world would be a different place. I think it is important to remember the church is filled with sinners. Jesus spent his entire life teaching and guiding sinners. He came for us!

With all of that said. I never knew about a midnight fast other than for a surgury. We did go to a 7:30 AM mass growing up so I guess we did it but I never knew about it. Now I go to Mass at 5:00 PM on Sunday and some weekdays. If I could go everyday I would! I know very little about Pre Vatican II since I am on the younger scale. Mass was always in English unless I went to the Ukrainian Catholic Church. I agree with the richness of the traditions in the Eastern Rite. I notice we have Icons in our church. I don't think Catholics have lost the sence. Some have never had it and that is something to pray for. There is a wide range of people that go to church and call them selves Catholics. I called myself Catholic when I wasn't attending church. There are people that go occationally, weekly and daily. We try not to judge the next person. We live by example. I personally frequent the sacrament of reconcilialtion. Adoration is a wonderful experience sitting with the Lord, praying, asking for guidance, worshiping. We get on our knees in front of the exposed blessed sacrament. We bow before receivng communion. So I must say that the people that you may know that call themselves Catholics may be in a different stage on their journey home. There is so much I want to say but this isn't the place. I am sure much will come out over time. I like the community here. I am Catholic and always will be. The Lord called me to study my religion and now he is leading me to my roots which is what brought me here. Who knows what I will be doing in the church but I would never downplay my Eastern Rite roots. It is all part of my journey.
Catholic means Universal. we welcome everyone to pray in unity. (I know there are some stipulations here for sacraments but the Orthodox church doesn't let just anyone go to communion either)

I am in Love with the Lord! I think about him 90% of my day. What can I do better? What will I learn today? Who can I help?
I once made fun of people like myself and now I have become the very person I made fun of. God does have a sence of humor.

Anyway I think it is dangerous to generalize and include all Catholics. Would you say that All Orthodox Christians follow the teachings of the church to a T? I would bet they don't because they are human and not all of them go to church etc.

I am thankful to be allowed to listen in on these conversations and to be able to participate. I am learning. I feel like I am on a rollercoaster when I am learning something new about my faith. I like to think it is the Lord hugging me from the inside guiding me each step of the way.

I don't fast from midnight. Just an hour before Mass. It is what we teach the children and what we practice. I can't speak fot the elders that were alive for Pre Vatican II changes. I don't remember the fast rule for Eastern Rite Catholics being from midnight but I don't remember much of my youth anyway.
Does this make me less of a Christian? The Lord has called me to work in the vinyard so there must be somehting more to it than fasting. I am a mother, a business person, a college student, wife, catechist and voluteer. God loves each of his children equally just as we do our own.

Much of this has been covered above. But, I'll give my personal opinion.....

... there are many different rules for Eucharistic fasting. I believe "pre-Vatican II" there was a universal rule of nothing after midnight for morning Mass. I believe the Greek Catholic Churches generally still require the same. I believe most Orthodox Churches require that as a minimum, but some go further. One (OCA) priest requested not only a midnight-on fast, but also attendance at Orthros or Vespers, keeping of the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday fasts, and the reading of the pre-communion canon and prayers.

The Latin Church's reduction to one hour in my view was done as sort of a minimum that applies to all situations. The changes in pastoral practice of the past several years has allowed Masses to happen for a day anytime from after Vespers to the beginning of Vespers for the next day. This means Mass for a particular feast can take place anytime from the 4:00 the day before until 7:00PM or so the day of.

Also, daily communion is possible in the Latin Church. I know people try to catch daily Mass when possible - I lived in an urban area with several nearby churches with different schedules, so no matter what was going on during the day one could usually to find a Mass that fit the whatever might happen in day's schedule.

A "one hour before receiving" rule is very good, in my view, for such a schedule and my belief is that the Latin Church would like to encourage office workers and the like to come to daily Mass no matter what their schedule's like.

Obviously, this needs to be done with discretion and with input from one's spiritual father.

Markos

Vatican II did not make any particular change in the Eucharistic Fast. Early in the twentieth century, a few shrines which regularly had a "midnight Mass" on Sundays obtained a ruling that those who were to receive Communion should fast for at least three hours, but this had not been extended for general use (on Christmas and Pascha, for example).

In the 1950s Pope Pius XII reduced the absolute requirement to a three hour fast before Mass, largely to accomodate those who liked to attend Mass on week-days at noon time but who did need an early breakfast.

Late in the 1960s Pope Paul VI reduced the requirement to a one-hour fast before Holy Communion, which seems almost derisory.

The Instruction on implementing the liturgical prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches urges the voluntary restoration of the fast from the night before.

One of the serious problems with all this is the insistence of some faithful on being told what they are "obliged" to do "on pain of mortal sin".

The same problem arises with the Friday abstinence - the attitude seems to be that if it doesn't involve "mortal sin", it doesn't matter.

Strange, but there it is.

Fr. Serge

I find this quite reasonable.

(Personally, I find that the Eastern requirement can become a bit extreme...The midnight to reception of Holy Communion fast is fine for healthy individuals who live in Europe where that means not later than 9 in the morning because Liturgies are held much earlier than in the United States...but in the U.S. the time of the Eucharist can be as late as 11:15 -11:30 in the morning..add those eleven and a half hours of fast to those who go to sleep early and have their last meal of the day at 6 p.m., and you then have 17 1/2 hours of no food-- and that kind of fast is not at all conducive to frequent communion. Ofcourse people should consult their spiritual fathers about this as the beauty of the East is that rather than create legalistic rules which can confuse the faithful, we have 'eikonomia' to be applied by a spiritual father for the individual according to one's medical and spiritual needs.)


I find this quite unreasonable...extreme legalism is not a good thing in the spiritual life.

Alice

Alice

I don't find it unreasonable to fast from the evening before. Once my evening meal is over - that's it till about 1pm the following afteroon .

WOW...that is even more hours....God bless you!

Alice

I do not find the rules for receiving communion in the Orthodox Church to be extreme, and as was stated above, there is economia for children and those with health conditions or medication requirements. When I travel, I check ahead with the priest and do what he requires at his parish. I respect that as a minister of the sacrament, he is responsible.

My two cents... The spirit of the fast, even the 1 hour fast being discussed above, is to be mindful. To be mindful of God is a basic spiritual concept found in the desert fathers and mothers and in the writings of just about every Saint or righteous person and our Lenten services are replete with this. (It is of no use to fast physically without fasting spiritually. The demons fast perfectly as they don't even have a need to eat!) How much more are we to be mindful of receiving the very body and blood of Jesus Christ? As described above, I too have heard some Catholics reduce the communion fast to a legalistic hour before reception of communion. This is sad and I usually speak with them about that.

There are many reasons why this forum is necessary and this is just another! Thank you to all who post so kindly and thoughtfully as Christians should.

prayers
nun Alexandra

I knew when I posted my opinion, that it would be controversial!

Please, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, note that I said it can *become* extreme, not that it *is* extreme...I said *become*, because sometimes in churches *in the U.S.* (in Europe, services are much earlier and dinners the night before much later--also monastic liturgies are very early) seventeen and a half hours have passed without food and water. It was not meant to be that long. I understand that the fast before Holy Communion is supposed to be seven to eight hours only.

So you can see why I am saying that so many hours is difficult to the health of some individuals for various reasons.

That is all I wanted to say...I don't advocate a change...but I think that it is much easier to receive at pre-sanctified Liturgies where the fast is seven to eight hours during the day.

In Christ,
Alice

I favor what seems to be the general (though not universal)practice among Orthodox, which is to fast from midnight for a morning Liturgy and to fast from noon for an evening Liturgy (such as presanctified). I also believe (and here I'm a bit controversial I suppose) that the Church should be very careful in how she catechizes people regarding fasting rules (and really all rules of the Church). I believe that it is unwise to attach too much sin to those who do not always strictly comply. It is not that I think that Church rules should be optional. I do think that everyone should obey the rules as best as they can to the best of their ability. But I also believe in "economia" for particular circumstances. Let me give you one example of the radicalism I'm talking about, which is going to get me in trouble.

Suppose a person who hasn't been to communion in some time and has struggled with grave sin comes back to Church for pre-sanctified and goes to confession. Suppose the person had eaten in the afternoon, say around 2 or 3 pm. I don't think that it would be necessarily wrong for the priest to permit this man to communion since he is in such desperate need of communion. We have to remember that all of these rules are not ends-in-themselves. Their whole purpose is to move the heart toward God and toward the proper reception of the sacraments. Also, I think that we have enough sins to avoid, which are listed in the 10 commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. I don't think that the Church needs to add more mortal sins. So I really do think that it is unwise for a Church to proclaim that missing a Sunday or feastday Liturgy, eating meat on a certain day, or coming up 20 minutes short in the communion fast is a grave sin. Just my two cents. But for reflection, I'd like to add the following, which is a passage from Romans 14:

1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. 11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "[a] 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food[b] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.


Peace and blessings,

Joe

Alice,

I am glad you posted this topic. I had no idea and now it is one more thing to add to my paper.

Please note: the Moscow Patriarchate permits the communicant to eat until six hours before Holy Communion if this is to be the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts.

Fr. Serge

Yes, I believe it may be the same for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

With the modern Roman Catholic fasting rules, a person could practically be pigging out on their way into the narthex and still comply with the "Eucharistic fast," which only requires fasting an hour before receiving Our Lord.

Now, I find it interesting and edifying that fasting rules are imposed in Byzantine practice for liturgies which are not Sacrificial (i.e. Holy Mass and Divine Liturgy). Is there anything similar in the Roman Catholic praxis, or has there historically been? I have to admit I haven't heard of any.

Alexis

LA:

The only service we have left is the Presanctified Liturgy on Good Friday, now known as the Liturgy of the Lord's Passion. Otherwise, we don't have any restrictions on celebrating the Liturgy on every other day of the year. And certainly we should fast on Good Friday as well as before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ at this Liturgy.

BOB