day, but does not forbid a small amount of food in the morning and in the evening.
2. All Catholics seven years old and over are obliged to abstain. All Catholics from the completion of their twenty-first to the beginning of their sixtieth year, unless lawfully excused, are bound to fast.
3. Abstinence alone is prescribed every Friday, unless a holy-day falls thereon. Fasting and abstinence are prescribed in the United States on the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent and Holy Saturday forenoon (on all other days of Lent fasting alone is prescribed and meat is allowed once a day), the Ember days, viz.: the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the first Sunday of Lent, Pentecost or Whit-sunday, the 14th of September, and the third Sunday of Advent; the vigils of Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints and Christmas. There is no fast or abstinence if a vigil falls on a Sunday. Whenever meat is permitted, fish may be taken at the same meal. A dispensation is granted to the laboring classes and their families on all days of fast and abstinence except Fridays, Ash Wednesday, Wednesday in Holy Week, Holy Saturday forenoon, and the vigil of Christmas. When any member of such a family lawfully uses this privilege all the other members may avail themselves of it also; but those who fast may not eat meat more than once a day.
