Don Marcello Stanzione
Good Friday is the day of the year in which it is necessary to abstain from meat, a reminder of that Good Friday in which fasting is also observed, which recalls the passion and death of Jesus. Some scholars believe that the choice of Friday has its roots in the Old Testament. According to Gen 3,8° Adam and Eve “heard the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”; the meteorological reference probably refers to the ninth hour of the sixth day (Friday) of the week. We know from Mt 27.45 that Jesus’ death occurred “about three o’clock” in the afternoon. As if to say that while Adam and Eve sinned at the ninth hour of Friday, Jesus the new Adam, always dying at the ninth hour (three in the afternoon) of a Friday, redeemed the error of our ancestors. The interpretation of A. Scarnera appears suggestive, in Christian fasting from its origins to the 4th century, where the author – within a broader debate of why Friday was chosen for Christian fasting. “The diversification of the Hebdomadary liturgy proposed by Didache appears without any justification – except for Sunday, which has a clear link with the resurrection -, so a theoretical motivation takes on a more sociological than moral meaning, even if this last thesis has neither a logical nor metaphysical foundation . To confirm this erroneous interpretation, the fasting days for Christians are identified on the basis of the liturgical calendar in use at Qumram and adopted, most likely, in the Church of Jerusalem. This testimony came significantly closer to the only possible reason that clearly explains why Friday was established as a day of fasting: there is a scriptural foundation that does not conflict with Judaism. In the book of Genesis, in chapter III, where the moment immediately following disobedience to God is described, the sacred author reports that “the Lord God walked in the garden in the breeze of the day”. This time of day, when a gentle east wind, corresponds to the ninth hour of the sixth day of creation (Friday). At the same time, in Matthew’s account of the death of Jesus, in chapter XXVII, the meteorological state of “darkness over the whole earth from midday to three in the afternoon” is described: Jesus dies at the ninth hour on Friday. The exegetical relationship is clear: just as Adam and Eve sinned on Friday at the ninth hour, so Jesus redeems humanity from sin at the same ninth hour on Good Friday. This is a much more theological and exegetical reason that dissolves any reason for anxious conflict and separation towards the Jews.” Not all Christians are subject to dietary requirements. Canon 1252 states that “those who have completed the fourteenth year of age are bound by the law of abstinence; to the law of fasting, however, all adults up to the age of sixtieth have begun. However, pastors of souls and parents should ensure that even those who are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence due to their minor age are trained in the genuine sense of penance. Fasting on Good Friday consists of taking a single meal during the day and being very sober in any other moments of eating. All adults up to their sixtieth year of age are required to fast, unless there is a just cause for exemption. All those who have reached the age of fourteen are required to abstinence, which today consists in giving up not only meat but above all refined and expensive foods and drinks, as well as many other superfluous things, provided they are in a situation of normal life.
