A reader writes:<\/p>\n
I hope that you and your beautiful family are well and as always thank you so much for the wonderful work that you do. I do have a quick question though and I am hoping you may know the answer. What is he Church\u2019s teaching on the obligation of abstaining from meat on Fridays when a particular Friday is a major holiday. For what it is worth I also gave up meat on Saturdays for my many other issues I have\u2026.I have a lot of Atoning to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Big giant feasts like Christmas mean you not only may\u00a0 but *must<\/strong>* indulge yourself.\u00a0 No fasting on Christmas.\u00a0 All of creation is throwing a party.<\/p>\n
Thank you again for your time and I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday Season and a Joyful Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And the same to you and yours! \u00a0Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n
Addendum: \u00a0A reader sends along the following quirky anecdote about St. Francis of Assisi:<\/p>\n
When Christmas Day fell on a Friday some of the friars asked St Francis if it was OK to eat meat, to which he replied, \u201cOn this day, even the walls should eat meat.\u201d He then proceeded to slap some lard on the wall, just to make the point.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A reader writes: I hope that you and your beautiful family are well and as always thank you so much for the wonderful work that you do. I do have a quick question though and I am hoping you may know the answer. What is he Church\u2019s teaching on the obligation of abstaining from meat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-95182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mailbag"],"yoast_head":"\n
Do we fast if Christmas is on a Friday?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A reader writes: I hope that you and your beautiful family are well and as always thank you so much for the wonderful work that you do. I do have a quick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/12\/do-we-fast-if-christmas-is-on-a-friday.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do we fast if Christmas is on a Friday?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader writes: I hope that you and your beautiful family are well and as always thank you so much for the wonderful work that you do. 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