Communion.—God commands, that we mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we chastise the body, and bring it into subjection : the Church, that we may comply with this, appoints certain times and days to be devoted to abstinence and fasting.[1]
THE FAST OF LENT.
Catholics observe the Fast of Lent, as a primitive institution, coming down to them, by an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostolic Ages.
FATHERS.
CENT. II.
TERTULLIAN, L. C. When a Monatist, writing against the Catholics, he says: “They, indeed, fancy, that those days in the Gospel are appointed for fasting, in which the bridegroom was taken away (Matt. ix. 15.) and that these are the only legitimate fasts of Christians, the legal observances of the Jews being abolished.” L. de Jejuniis. c. ii. p. 982.
- ↑ Many are the precepts of the Church, which all the faithful are bound to obey, (Prop. XVI.) besides the three above mentioned, which define the time and manner. But how many, or whatever they be, they all seem to have a direct reference to some previously enjoined law of God, the observance of which they are designed to enforce, or to facilitate, or to perfect. Such is the law of celibacy, which in the language of the Apostle, (1 Cor. vii.) takes away from the ministers of religion much solicitude, and enables them to attend upon the Lord without impediment. And such likewise are the laws relating to certain impediments of matrimony, or irregularities in the qualifications for holy orders; the design of which is to enforce the purity and decorum of the sacramental institutions. In this view, the precepts of the Church are no burdens, nor meant to be; but are means, devised in wisdom and kindness, for our greater sanctification.
