What is the first one of these notices which you have or have not just heard? You don't know. Well, it is this: All the week-days of Lent, from Ash Wednesday till Faster Sunday, are fast-days of precept, on one meal, with the allowance of a moderate collation in the evening. Fast-days—do you know what that means? I venture to say that many of you do not; or, if you do, you do not act as if you did. Some people that you would think had more sense seem to think that a fast-day is about the same thing as a Friday through the year, except that it is not so much harm to eat meat on a fast-day as on a Friday. It is hard to understand how any one can be so stupid.
What is a fast-day, then? It is a day, as you hear in the notices, on one meal. That does not mean two other full meals besides, and plenty of lunches in between. It means what it says—one full meal, and only one. The church has, it is true, allowed, as the notices say, a moderate collation in the evening What does that mean? As much as you want to take? No. How much, then? Eight ounces is the amount commonly assigned. That is to say, you have your dinner, and a supper of eight ounces in weight. Is that all? No, not quite. Custom has also made it lawful to take a cup of tea or coffee and a small piece of bread, without butter, in the morning. This is an important point; for if this will prevent a headache and enable you to get through with your duties as usual, you are bound to take it, and not get off from the fast on the ground that you cannot keep a strict fast on nothing at all till noon.
This, then, is what is meant by a fast-day. It may be a day of abstinence from flesh-meat, or it may not be. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday you can have meat, but at dinner only; and no fish, oysters, etc., when you have meat—the tea or coffee and the eight ounces the same those days as on the others. But on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday no meat at any time. And remember, nothing can be eaten on a fast-day but just as I have described—no lunches, large or small, between meals.
But you say: "I will get very hungry and lose a good many pounds on such a scant diet as that." Yes, that is quite likely; and that is just what Lent was made for, that you might get hungry and lose as many pounds as you can spare. That never seems to occur to some people. It wouldn't do some of you any harm to lose a few pounds; you will recover from it, I am sure. The papers say that one of the pedestrians (a woman, too, by the way) lost over thirty in a long walk she has just finished. Is it not as easy to suffer a little for the honor of God as a great deal for one's own?
But is there no excuse? Oh! yes. There are plenty. They are given in the last paragraph of the notices. If you are weak or infirm—really, that is; not with a weakness beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday—if you are too old or too young; or if from any reason, like hard work, you really need abundant food. In case of doubt consult a priest.
But these excuses do not allow one to eat meat. They excuse, as you hear in the rules, from fasting, but not from abstinence. And yet you will hear people saying: "They told me I was not bound to fast," and forthwith eating meat as often as they can get it, just the same as if it was not Lent at all. Understand, then, it takes a much greater reason to excuse from abstinence than from fasting. Never eat meat at forbidden times in Lent without getting proper permission. Ordinary work is no excuse.
I would like to say much more about these matters, that you might fully understand them, were there time to do so. But remember that the rules of Lent are binding, like the other laws of the church, in conscience; and if you break them in any notable way you commit a mortal sin. Suffer a little now, that you may not suffer for ever, banished from the kingdom of God.