Fasting Proposal

I made this as a suggestion for how one might arrange a more layered, "Eastern-style" Fasting program, but in a system that could be put into a logically-organized chart according to the internal logic and liturgical calendar of the West. I had originally posted a less rigorous (but more complex/confusing) suggestion involving making distinctions in abstinence between supper and the other meals, but dropped that in favor of this:

I took my own suggestion from the comments section of my post on the confusing concept of Partial Abstinence, and re-interpreted "partial abstinence" as being no flesh-meat (what "abstinence" currently is in the West) and "full abstinence" as being the more Byzantine restriction on other things too (eggs, dairy, etc). In the East, they have something like this distinction inasmuch as on some days all those things are abstained from, whereas on less strict days they allow wine and oil, or even fish, wine, and oil (though eggs and dairy are always joined to "meat" among the Byzantines). In the West, however, we have this tradition of an abstinence from flesh-meat only (but not eggs and dairy), so I wanted to maintain a category like that in the division between the two classes of abstinence.

The system is rather complex, granted, though also logical.

It may look daunting, but it is simplified if you realize that it's really the combination of a number of basic categories; there is the Fast/No-Fast duality, the three grades of Abstinence (None, Partial, Full), four seasons of increasing penitential character (Ordinary Time, Advent, Septuagesima, and Lent), and three groups of weekdays of increasing penitential tendency (Monday/Tuesday/Thursday, Wednesday/Saturday, and Friday; Sundays and Solemnities always stands alone as always non-penitential).

It may also help if you realize that I made the penance "additive," so that generally the penitential character of each type of weekday is "bumped up" one category by season.

The Ember Days overlap with several other categories of penitential days (Lent, Advent, Fridays, Wednesdays and Saturdays). The general principle I adopted for them then, as you can see on the chart, is to take whatever type of fast and abstinence applies on that Friday, and extend it also to the Ember Wednesday and Saturday. The Fridays themselves gain nothing simply from the fact that they are Ember, however.

Another way to summarize the proposal on this chart would be to use this format:
Basically, Sundays and Solemnities (including every day during Easter Week, remember!) never contain any sort of penance. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays start without any during "ordinary time" but move up a category for Advent, another category for Septuagesima (except Fat Tuesday!), and a final category for Lent. Wednesdays and Saturdays start two categories down (with full abstinence but no fasting) during most of the year, and likewise move up a category for each increasingly penitential season.

Fridays start a further two categories down (with partial abstinence and fasting for most weeks of the year) and follow the same basic pattern except, rather than distinguishing between the Fridays of Advent and those of Septuagesima (given that there are only two Fridays of Septuagesima anyway), those two are treated the same for Fridays and instead Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (and Holy Saturday until after the Vigil) constitute the most severe category.

This is because I thought it made more sense for Fridays of Lent to be the Black Fast and to limit total no-eating to only these extremely sombre 2/3 days a year, rather than to make every Friday of Lent no-eating [but then with no special distinction for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday] and for the Black Fast to only occur obscurely for the two Fridays during Septuagesima.

The exception regarding Fridays during Advent and Septuagesima being the same ruins the pattern a bit, but one can also see that if the weekdays are considered by season (as opposed to the seasons being considered by weekday) there is sort of a "diagonal" pattern too. For example, during Ordinary Time, Monday/Tuesday/Thursday starts with nothing, Wednesday/Saturday skip a category and jump up to full abstinence, and Friday skips another category and jumps up to Fast with Partial Abstinence. During Advent, Monday/Tuesday/Thursday move up a category to Partial Abstinence, Wednesday/Saturday skip a category and so jump up a step to Fast with No Abstinence, and Friday skips too and so jumps up a step to Fast with Full Abstinence. In other words, during a season, depending on the "base-line" category for Monday/Tuesday/Thursday, the other two groups of weekdays increase in severity from there in an "every other" category fashion.

I certainly would never imagine springing this scheme on the whole Latin Church, certainly not right away. It would probably needlessly confuse people. But I would put it out there as a suggestion on top of the traditional pre-Vatican-II requirements, and let people gradually get used to the idea and internalize it.

The idea was to have a "layered" continuum of types of penitential days, from those only very minimally penitential (the weekdays of Advent, for example) where the only thing is given up is flesh-meat, to those moderately penitential in various different ways (Fridays throughout the year, Wednesdays and Saturdays in Advent/Septuagesima, the weekdays of Lent, etc), to those very penitential (Ember Days, the Fridays of Lent, etc) that are quite strict.

For the most super-penitential days, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (and suggested for Holy Saturday; see the note at the bottom) I simply suggest water only (which the Orthodox actually do for a couple days in a row during the first week of Lent, so don't complain!)

I hope this will help some people looking for a more Byzantine-style "layered" fast cycle, but who are confused by the idiosyncratic nature of their system, or who wish to do it in the framework of the Latin liturgical calendar (and chart-friendly logical organization).

To summarize the information on the chart, there is a gradual continuum of penitentiality going from none to severe, like this:

0) Sundays and Solemnities, and Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays outside penitential seasons, and Shrove Tuesday in Septuagesima: no penance (fast only from midnight until Communion, if you are to receive that day) [~185 days, more than half the year]
1) Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays of Advent: partial abstinence [9-12 days depending on when Christmas falls]
2) Wednesdays and Saturdays outside penitential seasons, and Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays in Septuagesima (except Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras when all is lifted for one final hurrah before Lent): full abstinence [~83 days]
3) Vigils, Rogation Days, the Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays of Lent, and the Wednesdays and Saturdays of Advent: fast, but no abstinence (collations, if taken, should be partially abstinent) [~33 days depending on how many vigils]
4) Fridays outside penitential seasons, Wednesdays and Saturdays of Septuagesima, and the Summer and Autumn Ember Days: fast, partial abstinence (collations, if taken, should be fully abstinent) [45 days]
5) Fridays of Advent and Septuagesima, Wednesdays and Saturdays of Lent: fast and full abstinence (absolutely no collations) [13-14 days]
6) Fridays of Lent, and the Advent and Lenten Ember Days: Black Fast-->one meal of bread, herbs, and water only [12 days]
7) Ash Wednesday, Good Friday (and Holy Saturday): No food whatsoever, water only [2-3 days]

I have put number of days each roughly encompasses in brackets afterward, though this is only an estimate as some days might overlap or some weekdays may never occur depending on how the days of the week line up with the date of Christmas, for example.

The trend is a general decrease in the number of days in each category as severity increases (though the weekdays of partial abstinence but no fasting during Advent obviously represent the notable exception to this rule).

In all, about half the days of the year are some sort of penitential day, which is similar to how it is in the East. The most common types of day are days of full abstinence, and a partially abstinent fast which occurs once a week on Friday, and then all through Lent.