"Why can we eat fish on days of abstinence? Fish and most other animals that live in water are cold-blooded. Abstinence from meat applies only to the meat of warmblooded animals. So we may also eat frog’s legs, turtle soup, alligator, and even snake (which is a delicacy in some places) … just not the meat from a bird or mammal."
If nothing else, it shows that Catholics in the South typically have a wider variety of foods to choose from on Fridays of Lent. Unless anyone feel slighted, here in the Western U.S. we remain free to indulge in rattlesnake. I hear it tastes like chicken. Maybe we talk the KofC into hosting a Lenten Rattlesnake Barbecue one of these years!
By virtue of our Baptism, in which we died with Christ and were raised with him, in addition to meat, let us abstain from all that separates us from God and from each other, all that does not flow from genuine love/charity/caritas/agapé.
Prayer from Lauds for the Second Friday of Lent:
Merciful Father,
may our acts of penance bring us your forgiveness,
open our hearts to your love,
and prepare us for the coming feast of the resurrection.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
may our acts of penance bring us your forgiveness,
open our hearts to your love,
and prepare us for the coming feast of the resurrection.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Peace! I just read somwhere (sorry, I don't have a link) that in Michigan a very old dispensation allows Catholics to eat muskrat on Fridays; though it is a mammal, it lives in the water. But let's remember why we do it at all: to remind us of our hunger which only God can fill. God bless you!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking personally, I'd only eat muskrat as a penance! No offense to any Michiganders.
ReplyDeleteGod bless our Southern brethren... I 'll sick with the old fashion fish fry and clam chowder.
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