THE HOLY WEEK BAN ON EATING MEAT

Throughout the Roman Catholic Church, the law of abstinence and fasting prohibits the flock from indulging in meat diet on duly designated days, particularly during Lent.  Meat diet comprises the flesh, blood or marrow of such animals and birds as constitute flesh meat, according to the appreciation of many intelligent and law-abiding Christians.  For this reason, recourse to a menu of fish or similar cold-blooded creatures of the sea has been suggested and considered not at variance with the church law on abstinence.

And so, after the morning mass this Palm Sunday, my family and I proceeded to the wet market to buy lots of fish and none of meat in preparation for the forthcoming Holy Week.

I now suddenly remember that when I was a child -- that was many, many years ago -- I often asked my parents the rationale behind the Roman Catholic Church's  ban on the eating of meat during the Lenten Season.  They had always explained to me that avoiding meat during Lent symbolized self-denial and sacrifice in atonement with the sufferings of Jesus on the cross.  Indeed, if Jesus had given up His life to redeem mankind from sin, why then could not we, His followers, replicate a wee bit of that sacrifice by at least momentarily denying ourselves of, or giving up, that which we relish and find difficult to do without.  The delicious meat viands are truly one of such.

When I grew up and spent one Holy Week among some Christian relatives who lived in the mountains of Oriental Mindoro and who daily survived on hunting birds and other warm-blooded animals for food, I asked my uncle -- who I knew to be a Christian -- if they also abstained from eating meat come Lent.  He said yes, adding that, as a matter of fact, Lent was a rare occasion when they usually went -- as surely they soon would, even inviting me to join -- down the mountain to a nearby beach or fishing village, where they could savor fish for a change and buy extra servings for the rest of the Holy Week.  To them, according to my uncle, that occasion was a most welcome departure from their usual staple of birds and wild boars, of whose flesh they were nearly  "naduduwal at sawang-sawa na," in a manner of speaking.  I asked myself: was that sacrifice?

Maybe -- just maybe -- it's high time we had taken on a truer and deeper meaning than what we used to give it for so long in our traditional commemoration of the Lenten Season.