To Eat Meat or not to Eat Meat - That is the Question

“Now He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you; this man went to his house justified rather than the other one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” - Luke 18:11

Once again, the Feast of St. Patrick has fallen on a Friday during Lent. In the weeks leading up to this feast, Catholics wait in hope for a dispensation from the requirement to abstain from meat on this particular Friday of Lent so that they may celebrate in the usual fashion of consuming corned beef. When those dispensations start coming out, 'holier-than-the-Pope' Catholics start voicing disagreement with their bishops about the dispensation. Like the Pharisee, they want people to know that they will still be abstaining and making the sacrifice of not enjoying all that delicious corned beef.

To eat meat or not eat meat; that is the question. What is the right thing to do? As with all things in our faith, it all comes down to the inclination of the heart.

We fast during Lent to strengthen our wills. When we voluntarily deny ourselves earthly pleasures, we strengthen the spirit’s ability to control the will. The more control we have over our wills, the easier it is for us to resist the temptations of the devil. We abstain from meat on Fridays because the Church offers this to God for the universal penance for sin. We remember the day our Lord died by offering a universal penance for sin by refraining from consuming that which most humans enjoy eating, which is meat. This isn’t a requirement for salvation, but a pious practice of being repentant.

The requirement of abstaining from meat is not limited to just the Lenten season. It is a requirement of all Catholics every Friday of the year. Like with the St. Patrick dispensation, a general dispensation has been given for Fridays that fall outside of the season of lent. Abstaining from meat is what is required but a Catholic can eat meat on a Friday if there is a good reason to do so. Simple desire is not a very good reason to take advantage of the dispensation.

The dispensation on St. Patrick’s Day, as well as every Friday that falls outside of the season of lent, comes with a requirement if you want to make use of the dispensation. If you eat meat on these days you are required to offer some other form of penance in its place. This penance has to be something you normally wouldn’t do. For example, if you pray a Rosary every day you can’t just offer your Friday Rosary as your penance. You need to do something on top of this Rosary. If you don’t pray a daily Rosary, you can offer a Rosary on Friday as your penance.

The problem is, many Catholics like taking advantage of the dispensation without fulfilling the requirements of it. They eat their meat and are either unwilling or unaware that they need to offer some other form of penance. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who think any dispensation from this practice is wrong and should not be given. The bishops differ on the subject. Some give the dispensation, some don’t. Those who are shepherd over discoes with large Irish populations usually lean to granting the dispensation.

There is nothing wrong with practicing abstinence regardless of the dispensation. It is a pious practice and, if your heart urges you to observe it, by all means do so. There is no need to voice disagreement with the bishop who grants a dispensation. There is no need to look down on anyone who takes advantage of the dispensation. In doing either you become like the Pharisee who looked own on the publican.

This is what the devil wants you to do. He wants you to think yourself better than the bishop or the common Catholic because you are making a greater sacrifice for God by observing a practice you are not asked to observe. When you do this, you exalt your own perceived holiness. Like with false humility, when you exalt your own holiness you are not being holy. When you do this you no longer make the sacrifice for God but for yourself.

Likewise, if you take advantage of the dispensation and you don’t offer a difference penance in its place you are using the dispensation as an excuse that takes you away from God and not as something that draws you closer. You are using the dispensation as a way of getting out of an obligation you don’t want to do in the first place.

This is where the inclination of the heart comes in. When we meet our obligations for love of God, they are truly a gift to him. When we meet our obligations just because they are obligations they are still gifts to God but ones that don’t have much love attached to them. When we meet our obligations because we want recognition from others they are no longer gifts to God but to ourselves.

When you do something for someone you love, it is never an obligation. The deeper you love someone the more you want to give to them to show your love for them. Love of God is no different. When someone asks what the bare minimum is that they need to do and still be Catholic they are showing a very shallow love for God. The deeper your love for God the more you want to do. The more you do the deeper that love grows. There is no competition with God and he never wants you to compare the love you have for him to the love someone else is showing him. Only God knows the depth of our hearts and none of us can judge the depth of another’s heart. But that is precisely what the devil wants you to do. He separates you from God by getting you to compare yourself to another in the way the Pharisee compared himself to the publican.

So, on this feast day, if you have been given the dispensation, celebrate and eat your corned beef. Just remember to do an addition penance in its place. If you haven’t been given a dispensation, honor that in love. If you are moved to observe the universal penance of abstinence, do so in a way that no one but God knows you’re doing so. What the Lord sees in private he rewards.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Living in a Post Judeo-Christian Age

“In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin' people free

The U.S.A. was just startin' out
A whole brand-new country
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be

And they put those principles down on paper and called it the Constitution, and it's been helping us run our country ever since then.”

The Preamble, Schoolhouse Rock, 1975

If you were a kid who grew up on Saturday morning cartoons in the 70’s and 80’s you may have sung the above. If you were born in the new millennium there is a good possibility that, not only have you not heard it, but you don’t even know what it is talking about. Fewer and fewer people today can tell you when our Constitution was ratified. Fewer still can tell you the principles on which the United States was founded or why the articles and amendments of the Constitution are important. When we forget our history, we make it possible for someone to hijack our present and that is where tyranny begins. Our founding fathers would be so disappointed in what we have become that I would give odds that many of them would move back to Britain.

Most people I know just don’t care about any of this stuff. They don’t see how it impacts their day-to-day lives. It has been such a long time that we have had to live with any real oppression that it is a concept we can no longer understand. We feel entitled to our freedom. We keep our liberty only as long as we are willing to fight for it. The truth of the matter is that our liberties have been slowly eroding since the beginning of the progressive movement that began in the early 1900’s. We are frogs slowly being boiled to death and we don’t have a clue. Come on in. The water is nice.

It is no surprise that we are also seeing the eroding of faith-based organizations. Christianity in particular is seeing the number of practicing people decline sharply in the last twenty years. The number of people who claim no religious affiliation has been increasing incrementally year after year. This has church leaders wringing their hands, trying to find ways to bring people back to the faith. I know the Catholic Church has become as accommodating as possible to try to keep people in the pews to no avail. The pandemic has only hastened people's departure.

Why?

People turn to God during hard and challenging times. When times are good God is seldom thought of. Take for example the recent tragedy of Damar Hamlin. Damar was a twenty-four-year-old football player who suffered a cardiac arrest while playing in a Monday night game. While the EMT’s worked to save Damar’s life his entire team knelt around him in prayer. Everyone in that stadium that night and the entire country soon after also joined together in praying for Damar. This is a good thing but it wasn’t that long ago when another football player, Tim Tebow, was roundly mocked when he would take a knee to pray and thank God for his talent. We also saw Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach, lose his job for privately praying on the field after a game.

We talk about the New Evangelization and try to find new and engaging ways to bring the Gospel of the Lord to those who have not heard it. The problem is that there are few, at least in the United States, who have never heard about Jesus. You would almost have to be living off-grid somewhere in the wilds of Alaska to not have heard at least something about Jesus. Many will listen to the stories from the bible in the same way they watch a movie like Star Wars. They are great stories but they have little relevance or impact on their day-to-day lives.

Like with our Constitution, the greatness the Judeo-Christian faith brought to our world is considered common place and we reap the benefits with a sense of entitlement. As I stated in the beginning, when we forget our history, we make it possible for someone to hijack our present and that is where tyranny begins. We are seeing this happen in our society now. As we cast off the tenants of the Judeo-Christian faith, we see a world embracing untruth, chaos, and death. If left unchecked, this will lead to the destruction of our society and we will have to rebuild from the ash of what used to be.

When we look at the history of man, we find that this is precisely the cycle of how things happen. God calls man from chaos. Man becomes prosperous. Man turns from God to do it on his own accord. Man returns to chaos. Man turns to God for salvation. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Those who fail to learn from history and bound to repeat it. Those who do learn from history suffer from it when it is repeated.

Keeping a Watchful Eye

A ship was returning to her home port after a long deployment out to sea. The sailors manned the rails in their dress uniforms. There was an excitement in the air. They were anxious to get home to see their families they had been away from for so long.

The same anxious excitement filled the crowd waiting on the dock for the ship. As it appeared on the horizon the excitement grew. The closer the ship came to shore the more frenzied the crowd became. Then came the words every sailor longs to hear upon returning from a long deployment. “Moored, shift colors”. Jubilant cheers erupted from the families as balloons flew heavenward and the band began to play. The sailors finished tying the ship to the dock and waited for that glorious announcement over the 1MC – “Liberty Call, liberty call”.

Sailors flooded over the brow to the awaiting arms of their loved ones. Spouses reunited; parents snatched their children up in tight hugs. Smiles, laughter, and happy tears were all that could be seen.

But one sailor could not find his wife and son as he looked throughout the crowd. His excitement quickly faded and worry took over his face as the families began to leave the dock and head for home. His family was no where to be found. They were not there. Then a fear gripped the sailor as he hurried to catch a ride to his home.

As the taxi stopped in front of his house, he saw his wife’s car in the drive way. He threw a wad of bills at the driver and leapt from the car. As he approached his front door his fears changed as he grew concerned what he may find inside. He threw open the door and looked inside.

His wife was in the kitchen, cooking at the stove. His son sat on the living room floor building a cabin out of Lincoln logs. His wife turned and looked at him with a big smile on her face. “Welcome home, honey. We have been waiting for you,” his wife said with glee.

A wash of relief flooded the man when he realized his family was safe. A brief glimmer of joy filled his heart to see his wife and son again. That quickly was replaced by a heavy feeling of sorrow. The other families were giddy with anticipation watching with joyful excitement from the dock for their sailors to return to them. His family simply waited at home for him.

There is a difference between watching and waiting. Watching is an expression of love. It is something you actively do. The father of the prodigal son watched without ceasing for his son to return to him. Even when he was a long way off, the father saw his son and ran to meet him with a joy-filled heart. The son’s brother only waited for him and did not know that he had returned until he was told so by one of the father’s servants. Likewise, the five wise virgins watched for their master’s return and also ran to meet him with full lamps when he returned. The five foolish virgins simply waited and let their lamps run dry.

Jesus wants us to be watchful for his return. He wants us to see him even when he is a far way off and run to him with joy-filled hearts. He does not want us to just sit around and wait. Like the ship, Jesus wants to be welcomed back with fan fair, balloons, and singing when he arrives. He doesn’t want to have to come and find us.

The Church gives us the season of Advent to rekindle that fire in our hearts. Advent is a time where we are called from our sleep to have our anticipation renewed. We are called from our waiting to be watchful again. Advent is a time we celebrate Jesus, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. As we prepare to celebrate his nativity at Christmas, we also prepare ourselves for his return. We do this best by recognizing Christ present to us today.

As Catholics, we are not called to live in the spirit of Advent only during the season of Advent. We should have the spirit of Advent in our hearts every time we come to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We start Mass by asking Jesus to come and be present with us. We are joyful at the consecration of the Eucharist because the Lord is here. We end Mass with the assured hope that he will come again. Every Catholic should come to Mass as giddy as a young child staring at all of the brightly wrapped presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Jesus gives us himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity at every Mass. It is the greatest gift that has ever been given. It is the gift of sacrificial love.

Let us return to being watchful people again this Advent. Let us be prepared to run to meet the Lord when we see him approaching from far off. Let him not find us simply waiting for his return.