The question is bizarre compared to the seriousness and antiquity of penitential practice. No pope issued such provisions and the fish in question was fresh water (lakes and rivers), according to the testimonies of the Subiaco monastery since the fourteenth century.
The abstinence, in particular from the flesh, dates back to the Old Testament and for some circumstances to the same pay world, even if it has had wide development in the Christian monasticism of the East and West. A severe nutrition fought the temptations and the concupiscence of the meat, promoting the asceticism and the spiritual domination of the body.
Rather, it is important to emphasize that fasting with abstinence – that is, a meal a day, avoiding certain foods – is joined to prayer to God and to the Amosine: a trio that, already present in the Old Testament, marks the penitential practice of the Church.
This is what is stated in the pastoral note of the 1994 Italian Episcopal Conference, the sense of fasting and abstinence. In penance, man is involved in his totality of body and spirit: he converts to God and begs him for the forgiveness of sins, praising and making thanks; It does not despise the body, the moderate, and reinvigorates the spirit, does not close in itself but lives the solidarity that binds it to other men.
But for these three expressions to fall into the penitential practice of the Church must have an authentically religious, indeed Christian soul. This is what the aforementioned pastoral note is proposed, in application of a 1985 resolution, soliciting a convinced recovery of the penitential practice between the faithful. The fasting of Christians finds the original model and meaning in Jesus.
The Lord does not impose a fasting practice, but recalls the need for the evil one and in his life indicates its style and goal. Forty days of fasting precede temptations in the desert, which he overcome with the firm adhesion to the Word of God: “Not only bread will live man, but of every word that comes out of the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4).
The reference to Christ and his death and resurrection is essential to define the Christian sense of fasting and abstinence as of any form of mortification. In the Christian tradition, under monastic influences, the communities have outlined concrete forms of penance, fasting with a single meal during the day, followed by the evening meeting for listening to the Word of God and Community prayer.
These three things (prayer, fasting, mercy) are one, “nobody divides them”writes San Pier Crisologist. With the fourth century the time of Lent for catechumens and penitents are organized. San Leone the Great writes that for a true Christian fasting it is necessary to refrain not only from foods but above all by sins.
With Vatican II, a pastoral update is asked in the reasons and forms, especially through the works of charity, justice and solidarity. In the distribution of times and days, the Easter triduum are privileged, in particular on Holy Friday and the Ash Wednesday, beyond the abstinence from the meat on Friday of the year.
The provisions are in the 1249 fee of the 1985 canon law code, but episcopal conferences can set days and methods taking into account the condition of elderly or sick people. With the penitential practice of fasting and abstinence, the Church lives the invitation of Jesus to the disciples to abandon itself to the Providence of God (concludes the pastoral note) without anxiety for food: “Life is worth more than food and the body more than the dress … So do not seek what you will eat and drink, and do not be with the soul anxious … rather looking for the kingdom of God, and these things will be given to you” 12,23.29.31).
