Do Catholics need to abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent when it's a feast day?

Victoria Dodge
Lafayette Daily Advertiser



Lent is a 40-day period where Catholics abstain from luxuries and refrain from eating any meat, except fish, on Fridays in preparation for Easter. But what happens when religious observances with different obligations fall on the same day?

During Lent in 2021, two major Feast Days occur: the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph on March 19, and the Solemnity of the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25.

St. Joseph's Day — also called the Solemnity of Saint Joseph — always happens during Lent. But this year it falls on March 19, a Friday.

The feast of St. Joseph is also unique in 2021 as Pope Francis has declared this to be the "Year of St. Joseph" for the worldwide Church and Bishop Douglas Deshotel has declared a "Year of St. Joseph" for the Diocese of Lafayette.

More:As Catholics practice sacrifice during the holy season of Lent, do Sundays count?

Feast days, or solemnities, are days in the Catholic church where Saints and events in the Bible are celebrated. Despite the name, the days are not always commemorated with a banquet of food but instead mean "an annual religious celebration, a day dedicated to a particular saint" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

However, a major part of the Church’s observance of Saint Joseph's Day involves the tradition of St. Joseph's Table or St. Joseph's Altar according to Diocese of Lafayette's director of communications Blue Rolfes.

The altar features a three-tiered table — representing the Holy Trinity — with a number of traditional dishes. These dishes include foods such as breads in symbolic shapes - crosses, palms, lilies, or wreaths symbolizing St. Joseph — and symbolic pastries, usually including figs in the shape of the Bible, chalices, doves, or a Monstrance. Dried figs, olive salad, fava beans are also included.

With all these specialty reasonings for celebrating Saint Joseph's Day, what is the hierarchy when a feast day occurs on a Friday during Lent?

The laws of the Catholic Church provide for the occurrence of Feast Days during Fridays in Lent. Canon 1251 from the 1983 Code of Canon Law addresses this situation:

Canon 1251: Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

When a solemnity falls on a Friday in Lent, the celebration of the Solemnity takes precedence over the requirement of fasting from meat or some other food.

In other words, celebration of the solemnity overrides the Lenten requirement.

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