1 Timothy 4:1&3
Rome's Code of Canon Law (4:3:2:2):
Can. 1249 The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons.
Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.
Can. 1251 Abstinence from eating meat or some other food according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops is to be observed on ,of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year of age. The law of fasting, however, binds all those who have attained their majority until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors of souls and parents are to take care that minors not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are also educated in a genuine sense of penance.
Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.
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nice..god bless
from,India
For those reading this thread, I offer some verses to counter that Code of Cannon Law along with the verses juxtaposed to it, also:
Col 2:15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Col 2:17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Col 2:18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
Col 2:19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
Of course you will have to admit to the old saying, "if you have more than one [head] on your shoulders, you are a freak" if you hold to both their code and Colossians concurrently!
There, in those verses, we are admonished to "hold fast to the One True [H]ead of the universal Church, from whom the whole body (His True Church) are nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments that grows with a growth that is from God.
Colossians teaches quite a bit different teaching, doesn't it, than does the Code: "Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent."?
I just don't see how one can reconcile the two together, Colossians 2:15-19 with the penitential days and times in the universal Church are...?
Clearly the one liberates us from the other, doesn't it?
Why yes, yes it does!
From that selfsame passage we are also taught that false religion forbids marriage.
I actually agree that such things should not be mandatory. But they should not be forbidden, either. As Saint Paul says, "Let no one pass judgment..."
The same thing applies to Eastern Orthodox churches - in pre-modern times, when EO laymen were almost all Bible-illiterate, numerous and strict fastings were (besides taking the sacraments) the most concrete form of piety that common people participated in. Not fasting mechanically would have seemed almost equal to abandoning Christianity in their minds!
Also, the hypocritical Pharisaic spirit of this fasting could yet be seen in the way that the Russians, for example, were left free to drink vodka, lots of it, during such holy-days when they were forbidden to eat meat. They acted thus like G.K. Chesterton's "logical vegetarian"...
In fact, we might considering tee-totaling as a particularly PROTESTANT form of fasting. Pious RCs and EOs do not have much problem with using alcohol, but abstain from meat - whereas it tends to be the other round with pious Protestants.
The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) put certain food restrictions upon the faithful, so it's fallacy to suggest it cannot be done again.
Similarly, there were fasts and penances proclaimed on a nationwide scale in the OT as well.
1) So why doesn't RCC follow that exact restriction if RCC is the descendant of the early church?
2) They put that restriction in place to ease tensions between Jews and Gentiles' getting along in the early church.
1) Because that exact restriction isn't the point; the point is that the Church is perfectly allowed to put such restrictions.
2) True, but again the point is the Church can put such restrictions for ends it deems appropriate. Acts 15 could have imposed no restrictions at all.
By your ecclesiology, the Church cannot impose such restrictions at all, which shows which of us is being more biblical.
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