very good reason why catholics were asked to eat fish on a friday. Food was in very short supply during both WW1 and WW2, so the Pope asked all catholics to eat fish on a friday. Thus leaving more meat for the men at the front, the meat was canned and called bully beef,do you agree it was a great idea.
2007-10-01 12:23:22 · 18 answers · asked by ? 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I read all about this in a book many moons ago. At that time I thought it was a great Idea feeding the soldiers at the front a wee bit extra.
Sorry if I got it wrong but it is still interesting.
2007-10-01 12:56:09 · update #1
Hi Sugar puss was it when Christ the Lord to Andrew cried come down and follow me. The fisherman left his net beside the sea of Galilee. If it is it brings back a lot of memories for me....Thanks.
2007-10-01 18:53:27 · update #2
What??? Sorry, Suzie...but it's a lot older tradition than that!!
In the first century, Jews fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. The original Christians were all Jewish and were used to the fasting as a spiritual discipline. They moved the fast days to Wednesdays and Fridays, because Judas engineered Jesus' arrest on a Wednesday and Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Most often that fast took the form of avoiding meat in the diet. In those days, meat was a luxury food. You either had to buy it in a market or you had to own enough land to keep cattle. On the other hand, anyone could grow vegetables or forage for them, and anyone could catch a fish in a lake or a stream. You could buy better fish and vegetables, but the point is that you could eat without money if you were poor. So meat was rich people's food and fish was poor people's food. That is why the most common form of fasting was to omit meat and eat fish.
The Wednesday and Friday fasts were a universal Christian custom in ancient times. The Eastern Orthodox still observe these fasts. The Roman Catholic Church downplayed the Wednesday fast, but kept the Friday fast until quite recently. Anglicans and Protestants also observed these fasts. In the 18th century, a man could not be ordained a Methodist minister if he did not fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, with the reasoning that a person who could not rule his own belly could certainly not rule the church.
2007-10-01 12:29:45 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 10⤊ 0⤋
Not exactly the 'truth'... Some Catholics and Prayer Book Anglicans will refrain from eating the meat of warm blooded animals on Fridays, and will often choose fish instead.
This custom spread because Catholics wanted to abstain from meat (substituting fish in its place) supposedly in remembrance of the Friday crucifixion.
If anything, the Pope Clement IV did push the fish idea at a time in European history when the monastic houses were the only reliable source of fish inland, as they all had fish ponds for the Friday observance, and thus were expanding their economic activities to the general lay population. He needed the income to wage war on the King of Naples.
2007-10-01 12:27:32 · answer #2 · answered by DAVID C 6 · 5⤊ 0⤋
It was a great idea but it was not rooted in just the world wars, in fact it comes from the classical world, many people were shifting towards eating meat instead of fish and in order to help out the fishermen the local establishment decided to make at least one day a week be for eating of fish. Also you could say that catholics were doing it to pay respect to the apostles who lived and sometimes worked in and around fishing villages.
2007-10-01 12:29:57 · answer #3 · answered by Benotafraid 3 · 4⤊ 0⤋
I thought Jesus told people to eat fish because his disciples were fishermen.
Did Catholics not avoid meat on Fridays until the world wars? I never knew that.
2007-10-01 12:26:47 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Decode this lyrics " If you don't know me by now"
plenty more out there still climbing up the coconut trees and still look green.
Happily singing " For he's a jolly good fellow" getting kick on the butts as casualty of the dead Mummy in not worshiping God.
Luke 6.39-40,41-45, 46-49
2007-10-01 18:17:53 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Wow! Who told you that?? That practice started way before either the first or the second world war... like, around the first century...
Oh check out Father K. He knows about this. And by 'fasting' he means a disciplined diet as opposed to not eating anything.
2007-10-01 12:31:25 · answer #6 · answered by ammie 4 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Of course now Catholics suffer from mercury toxicity, but it was a grand idea. By the way, then what did Catholic soldiers do?
2007-10-01 12:28:12 · answer #7 · answered by Pull My Finger 7 · 3⤊ 1⤋
hi susie, i think the reason people ate fish on a friday, is something to do with, mirical of the fish and the breaking of the bread, and the feeding of the 5 thousand people , which was on a friday
2007-10-01 12:53:36 · answer #8 · answered by bluebrancall 7 · 3⤊ 1⤋
And the Bull Beef came in C-Rations.
2007-10-01 12:26:13 · answer #9 · answered by ? 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
this is interesting
2 the person who asked about the disciples being fishermen
it is actually phrased I (Jesus) will make you fishers of men; meaning he will give them what they needed to teach man about him (Jesus) and bring them closer to him (Jesus) brief explanation from my faith there is even a song relating to this
2007-10-01 15:59:33 · answer #10 · answered by nunya 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋