Benedict XIV on Lent

Benedict XIV

Non ambigimus

We have no doubts, Venerable Brethren, that those who adhere to the Catholic Religion know how the whole Church, spread throughout the Christian world, believes that it should include Lenten fasting among the main cornerstones of correct doctrine. Once sketched for the first time in the Law and in the Prophets, almost consecrated by the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, handed down by the Apostles, prescribed everywhere by the Sacred Canons, it has been welcomed and observed by the whole Church since its very beginnings.

Certainly, as the ancient Fathers handed down, with the establishment of this common remedy for us who sin daily, we too, associated with the Cross of Christ, can accomplish something in what He Himself has procured for us. At the same time, purified in body and soul by fasting, we prepare ourselves to commemorate the sacred mysteries of our Redemption in a more worthy way through the remembrance of the Passion and Resurrection, celebrated with greater solemnity especially in the Lenten season.

With fasting, almost a sign of our militia, we are distinguished from the enemies of the Church, we turn away the thunderbolts of divine vengeance and, with divine help, we are protected over the course of days by the Princes of darkness.

From its non-observance arises a non-negligible damage to the glory of God, a no small shame to the Catholic Religion and a certain danger for the faithful; it is certain, in fact, that the misfortunes of peoples, mortal disasters, public and private, do not originate elsewhere.

How distant, how different, how contradictory is the current behavior of those who fast from the persuasion and respect for the most holy Lent and for the other days dedicated to fasting, deeply rooted in the souls of all Catholics; how much it deviates from the authentic doctrine of fasting and from the practice observed always, everywhere and by everyone. You, Venerable Brothers, who are well acquainted with the uses and customs of the peoples entrusted to your care, by your particular perspicacity, recognize all this more clearly than all others.

Surely, since we, placed in this eminent observatory of the Apostolic Government, receive the news of the nations, we cannot help but lament that the most sacred observance of the Lenten fast, due to the excessive ease of dispensing everywhere, indiscriminately, for futile and not urgent reasons, has been almost completely eliminated, to the point of provoking the just recriminations of those who follow the orthodox Religion, while the followers of heresies scoff and exult. We greatly afflict ourselves that to this nefarious corruption of many should be added the license, which has taken hold to such an extent, without taking due account of the apostolic teachings and sacred provisions, to promote with impunity banquets in times of fasting and in public and indecorous manner prohibited banquets.

Driven therefore by sincere and nagging concern, We turn to you, Venerable Brothers: it is not possible for Us, due to the high task of the sacred apostolate conferred on Us, not to solicit Your ardent zeal to find a remedy against these evils and devise suitable laws to root out these abuses. Therefore, Venerable Brethren, Our joy and Our crown, considering together that there is nothing more pleasing to God, nothing more suited to Our pastoral ministry, nothing more useful for the flock entrusted to Our care, forerunners in the words and by example, we make the desire flare up in the hearts of the faithful to resume with more conviction such a healthy exercise of penance and devotion, to remain constantly faithful to it and to carry it out according to the established provisions. We seek with all care and with all zeal that the peoples remain faithful before God, for a more austere observance of the fasts, such as are to be found in the Paschal Feasts themselves.

Therefore, the due service of your paternal solicitude and charity requires that you bring to the knowledge of everyone that no one is allowed to dispense without just motivation and the advice of two doctors. The dispensation from the Lenten fast for an entire population, for a city or for a category of persons without distinction, must be requested, except for an urgent and very serious need and with due respect for this Apostolic See, whenever it will be necessary to grant it , without appropriating it in an impudent and resolute way, nor demanding it from the Church in a haughty and arrogant way, as we know to be in use in certain places.

Even if there is no reason to explain to you what the very serious need is, we want you to know well that in such a situation we must first of all stick to a single meal. Even here in Rome, in proceeding ourselves in the current year for urgent reasons to dispense, We have expressly decreed that neither licit nor prohibited banquets cannot take place without discernment.

Therefore, as we are convinced that we must proceed with extreme caution in granting indulgences, and it could not be otherwise because we will have to report it to the Supreme Judge, also in this case we think that it must be up to your conscience. At the same time we ask your fraternities and we implore you in the Lord that those who cannot observe the penitential discipline common to all the faithful invite them so that, as their own devotion can suggest to each one, they do not neglect with other works of piety to atone their faults and to ask God for forgiveness. With true fervor they should seek to discover the best way to heal the wounds that open up in fragile human nature and, not setting them to heal with purifying fasting, may they redeem the faults contracted for human frailty with works of piety, the suffrage of prayers and the giving of alms.

While we wait for relief and consolation to Our heavy affliction from Your pastoral solicitude and charity, which you will not let Us lack, We wholeheartedly impart to You, Venerable Brethren, the Apostolic Blessing full of abundant heavenly favours, to be extended to Your peoples .

We also want copies of this letter, even if printed, signed by a public notary and bearing the seal of an ecclesiastical personality, to maintain the same authority as the original and to be recognized wherever they are made public.

Given in Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the ring of the Fisherman, on May 30, 1741, in the first year of Our Pontificate.

From OnePeterFive Blog:... In 604, in a letter to St. Augustine of Canterbury, Pope St. Gregory the Great announced the form that abstinence would take on fast days. This form would last for almost a thousand years: “We abstain from flesh meat and from all things that come from flesh: milk, cheese, and eggs.” When fasting was observed, abstinence was likewise always observed.

Through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, we can learn how Lent was practiced in his own time and attempt to willingly observe such practices in our own lives. The Lenten fast as mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas constituted of the following:

• Monday through Saturday were days of fasting. The meal was taken at mid-day and a collation was allowed at night, except on days of the black fast
• All meat or animal products were prohibited throughout Lent.
• Abstinence from these foods remained even on Sundays of Lent, though fasting was not practiced on Sundays.[1]
• No food was to be eaten at all on either Ash Wednesday or Good Friday
• Holy Week was a more intense fast that consisted only of bread, salt, water, and herbs.
• The Lenten fast included fasting from all lacticinia (Latin for milk products) which included butter, cheese, eggs, and animal products.[2] From this tradition, Easter Eggs were introduced, and therefore the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is when pancakes are traditionally eaten to use leftover lacticinia. 
• And similarly, Fat Tuesday is known as Carnival, coming from the Latin words carne levare – literally the farewell to meat.