No Fasting Allowed During Eastertide!

Sunday April 18th, if you stood on the street corner and asked; Is Easter over? How do you think people would answer?

From Dom Guerenger "The Liturgical Year" Pascal Time Book II Vol. 8 page 11-12.

The fifty days between Easter and Pentecost have ever been considered by the Church as most holy. The first week, which is more expressly devoted to celebrating our Lord's Resurrection, is kept as one continued feast: but the remainder of the fifty days is also marked with special honors.

To say nothing of the joy, which is the characteristic of this period of the year, and of which the Alleluia is the expression- Christian tradition has assigned to Eastertide two practices, which distinguish it from every other season. The first is, that fasting is not permitted during the entire interval: it is an extension of the ancient precept of never fasting on a Sunday, and the whole of Eastertide is considered as one long Sunday.

This practice, which would seem to have come down from the time of the Apostles, was accepted by the Religious Rules of both East and West, even by the severest. The second consists in not kneeling at the Divine Office, from Easter to Pentecost. The Eastern Churches have faithfully kept up the practice, even to this day. It was observed for many ages by the Western Churches also; but now it is little more than a remnant. The Latin Church has long since admitted genuflection's in the Mass during Easter time. The few vestiges of the ancient discipline in this regard which still exist are not noticed by the faithful, inasmuch as they seldom assist at the Canonical Hours.

Dom Guerenger for Our Days

The selection below is from Dom Prosper Guerenger's Liturgical Year for the Tuesday of this week's Rogation Days. Although written last century, it sounds like this commentary is about our own days.

Today, again the great Litany, the supplication is heard from the house of the Lord: the solemn procession reappears in the streets of the city, and in the quiet lanes of the country. Let us take our share in this sacred rite; let us blend our voice with that of our mother, and join the cry that pierces the clouds:Kyrie Eleison! Lord have mercy on us!

Let us think for a moment, of the countless sins that are being committed, day and night; and let us sue for mercy. In the days of Noe, all flesh had corrupted its way; but men thought not of asking for mercy. The flood came and destroyed them all, says our Saviour. Had they prayed, had they begged God’s pardon, the hand of His justice would have been stayed, and the flood-gates of heaven would not have been opened. The day is to come, when not water as heretofore, but fire, is suddenly to be enkindled by the divine wrath, and is to burn the whole earth. It shall burn even the foundations of the mountains; it shall devour sinners, who will be resting then, as they were in the days of Noe, in false security.

Persecuted by her enemies, decimated by the martyrdom of her children, afflicted by numerous apostasies from the faith and deprived of every human aid, the Church will know that the terrible chastisement is at hand, for prayer will then be as rare as faith. Let us, therefore, pray; that thus the day of wrath will be put off, the Christian life regain something of its ancient vigor, and the end of the world not be in our times.

There are even yet Catholics in every part of the world; but their number has visibly decreased. Heresy is now in possession of whole countries that were once faithful to the Church. In others, where heresy has not triumphed, religious indifference has left the majority of men with nothing of Catholicity but the name, seeing that they neglect even the most essential obligations without remorse. Among many of those who fulfill the precepts of the Church, truths are diminished. The old honesty of faith has been superseded by loose ideas and half-formed convictions.

A man is popular in proportion to the concessions he makes in favor of principles condemned by the Church. The sentiments and actions of the saints, the conduct and teaching of the Church, are taxed with exaggeration, and decried as being unsuited to the period. The search after comforts has become a serious study; the thirst for earthly goods is a noble passion; independence is an idol to which everything must be sacrificed; submission is a humiliation which must be got rid of, or, where that cannot be, it must not be publicly acknowledged. Finally, there is sensualism, which, like an impure atmosphere, so impregnates every class of society, that one would suppose there was a league formed to abolish the cross of Christ from the minds of men.