Since the late 1960s, the Catholic Church of the Friday penance as abstinence from meat has been completely changed. Because of a relatively vague document, some argue that the Friday penance was dropped altogether, some argue that the requirement to abstain from meat was loosened and allowed to be replaced but there still had to be some sort of penance on Fridays, some argue that while the Friday penance is dropped it is still highly recommended, and some argue fifty other possible understandings. I’m here to argue for a Friday penance, not on old historical grounds but simply because doing it is good for you. In a recent episode of Pints with Aquinas, John Henry Spann and Matt Fradd discuss doing hard things after an ad for Exodus 90. Spann makes the claim that even if you took out all of the theological parts of Exodus 90, he would still recommend it for the simple reason that it is good to do hard things. This delved into further conversation as Fradd brought up his enjoyment of doing an ice plunge because he enjoys telling his lower self something along the lines of “I know you don’t want to do this, I know it will hurt, I am going to do it anyway.” They are entirely right. Doing hard things for no reason than the fact that they are hard is already enough of a good explanation. Why is this? A large part of it is simply that willpower is a lot like a muscle and needs to be exercised. However, unlike a muscle, it does not get tired in the same way. Small indulgences early in the day will weaken your willpower rather than give it a rest to preserve it for larger uses of willpower later in the day. This is why every person who says they’ll have a cookie or a coke at 11 am but will be better later in the day ends up even worse later in the day. Whereas when the person who holds off with the intention that they will indulge later in the day actually gets to that later in the day, he finds himself choosing to hold off again because he has already done so well. However, this matters for much more than just a cookie and a Coke. Christopher West expresses this well as he explains that in order to quit a porn addiction you need to begin by simply denying yourself for the sake of denying yourself. He makes the point that if you cannot convince yourself not to have that next slice of pizza right now then you certainly cannot convince yourself not to watch porn tonight. This is an enormous part of what makes penance so important. Intentional self-denial and even better yet intentionally doing things that are genuinely hard because they are hard prepares you for doing the hard things that really matter. So for Friday penances, I say whether it is required or not, regardless of where we are left off after the ambiguous document, take up a voluntary penance - and if you can, abstain from meat and then keep going and take up more that is harder - and stick to it. Joe Rogan likes to say that “The hardest thing that’s happened to you is the hardest thing that’s happened to you.” He goes on to explain that the hardest thing that’s happened to you may be something easy, but all the same that is the hardest thing that has happened to you. Well the same is true in a week, the hardest thing that has happened to you this week is the hardest thing that has happened to you this week. With a voluntary penance, you can make that hardest thing that has happened to you much more. Is the hardest thing that happened to you the fact that you were tempted to lust or dishonesty or gossip? Or is the hardest thing that happened to you whatever penance you took on yourself on Friday? If it is the latter, it will be much easier to handle the former. It is also worth noting that the very choice of Friday as a day of penance is in and of itself choosing to make things harder. The Church has always made Friday a day of Penance as an opportunity to make each Friday a little Good Friday before each Sunday being a little Easter. However, in the secular liturgical calendar, Friday is our feast day and Sunday is our day of mourning and penance as we catch up on the work we need for the coming week. This is an intentional rejection of the good, true, and the beautiful by our secular culture flipping what is right on its head. However, it poses an opportunity to make your own Friday penance even more difficult as it means that Friday will be the day likely filled with the most temptations for you to have to reject. So pick the hardest penance you can and reject all of these Friday temptations and instead take on a hard Friday penance, because it is hard.
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