Fasting on Good Friday: Why is it important?

Fasting is a very old practice loved by Catholic Christians, not only because it allows them to be masters of their own bodies, but also because it makes them a support to those who suffer injustice and inequality.

This religious practice has a greater purpose, penance, that is, patiently enduring life’s difficulties, Father Fernando Fontane Tejada explained by e-mail.

For Big FridayOn the day of Jesus’ death, fasting takes on a special meaning for believers. “Its meaning is penitential, it is the imitation of Christ who also prepared his most important and transcendent act of love through fasting,” said the priest. Jorge Obregon LC to the Catholic news agency ACI Prensa.

Who should fast? How is this religious practice performed? Fontane Tejada, pastor of St Saint John Mary Vianneyin Las Lajas (Las Cumbres) clarified these questions.

According to canonical norms, Fontane Tejada stated, fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Big Friday for Catholics aged 18 to 59.

Also, Code of Canon Law encourages pastors of souls and parents to “also be formed in an authentic spirit penancewho, due to the fact that they are not of legal age, are not obliged either to fast or to fast”.

About how one should fast, Fontane Tejada said: “We are allowed to take something other than bread and water. One can take a full meal, as well as two smaller meals. Two smaller meals together must not be equal to a full meal.”

During fasting, some drink a cup of coffee in the morning before the main meal of the day, others eat something light in the morning. breakfasta sufficient meal at noon and little or nothing for dinner, and, finally, there are those who eat only bread and water during the day, Father Obregón explained.

In addition to fasting, “we are asked to exercise.” mercywhich is much more than just giving alms, it is giving of oneself, and the prayer that leads us to conversion and to want to be reconciled with God in the sacrament of penance”.

“I invite all believers and people of good will to reflect These days, about the love that God has for us and that was proven in the deliverance of his son, in the midst of all the evil that surrounds us, to remember that the world is not saved by crucifixes, but by the crucified”, concluded Fontane Tejada.