Dear Faithful,
Christ is risen! It was a joy to see you assisting so devoutly and in such large numbers throughout the sacred ceremonies of Holy Week. We are now in the midst of celebrating the greatest feast of the year, that of the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Like Ascension, Pentecost, Christmas, Epiphany, and other great feasts, Easter has always been celebrated for a full eight days, following the practice of the ancient Hebrews. Since, then, we are in the midst of the Easter Octave and are joyously feasting, the question arises every year: can we eat meat on Easter Friday?
It is clear to me that people often intend to ask two different questions here. If the questions is: is Easter Friday traditionally a day of abstinence from meat? the answer is unquestionably yes. Before the changes to canon law that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, the only feast that could ever dispense if it fell on a day of abstinence was Christmas Day. Subsequent legislation extended the same dispensation to all holy days of obligation, except during Lent (e.g., in countries where the feast of St. Joseph was a day of obligation and fell on Friday of Lent, the fast was relaxed but the abstinence still bound). Easter Friday was never the object of this legislation; it remained always a day of abstinence, just as the Ember Days during the Octave of Pentecost were days of fasting and abstinence. Our forefathers in the Faith had no trouble embracing the idea of a "joyful fast" that occurred in the midst of their season of feasting. As with the seven-fish dinner on Christmas Eve, the faithful would be filled with cheer over the great feast at hand while making grateful remembrance of the price Our Lord paid for our salvation. If your desire is to follow the traditional practice of the Church, you will abstain from meat on Easter Friday.
If, however, your question is: does the Catholic Church in the United States currently oblige you on pain of sin to abstain from meat on Easter Friday? The answer is no. Under the universal law of the Church, every Friday of the year is a day of abstinence, and Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence. Since 1966, however, the bishops of the United States, while maintaining Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as days of fasting and abstinence, have reduced the days of obligatory abstinence to the Fridays of Lent. This statement, while exhorting the faithful to observe with renewed fervor all Fridays of the year as days of penitential remembrance of the Passion of Our Savior and to continue to give pride of place to abstinence as a means of practicing penance, makes it clear that Fridays outside of Lent are no longer days of obligatory abstinence. If you eat meat on a Friday outside of Lent, whether it's Easter Friday or any other Friday, it is not a sin.
Thus, the argument we often hear that Easter Friday dispenses from abstinence because it can be considered a "solemnity" under current law is incorrect and entirely beside the point. We also sometimes hear it argued that eating meat on a Friday outside of Lent is still a sin if you neglect to replace abstinence with an "equivalent" penance. This argument is also erroneous. In the statement cited above, the American bishops reiterate, "we emphasize that our people are henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence, except as noted above for Lent. We stress this so that no scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience, confessions, or personal decisions on this point."
Your priests here at the Oratory strongly exhort you to maintain the traditional practice of the Church and abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year. Wednesday is also a day on which abstinence (and, indeed, fasting) was observed since ancient times, as is Saturday, according to specifically Roman tradition. Those who are able can even abstain from all animal products and observe a fast on those days, as on the Ember Days and the vigils of great feasts. It is good to clear such practices with your confessor so that they are done in all humility.
If you abstain from meat on all Fridays, you are certainly following the mind of the Church. But do not forget that the Church does not wish for your penance to end there. Like the days of Lent, Fridays are an occasion to observe not only fasting but also prayer and almsgiving. Attend Holy Mass, make the Stations of the Cross and frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Perform numerous spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Let not your abstinence become a mindless observance, but rather a means of showing charity to others and ascending to God in prayer.
Wishing you all a blessed Easter Octave,
Canon Aaron B. Huberfeld
Rector