Is It a Sin to Eat Meat on Good Friday?

What if I already ate meat on Good Friday?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church sets out three conditions for a mortal sin: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent." It adds, "Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense." Catholic teaching treats a mouthful eaten without remembering the day differently from a meal chosen with the rule in mind.

EWTN says intention and circumstances affect moral responsibility. It gives as examples not offending a host, having no other food, illness and physically demanding work.

Catholic writers put the emphasis in different places. Some say a person who knowingly and deliberately breaks the rule brings it to confession. Others stress forgetting, not knowing, being a guest, illness and having nothing else to eat. Both views sit inside the tradition, and neither is a ruling on your own meal. That belongs with a priest, in conversation or in confession.

Sometimes the plate is still in front of you when the thought arrives.

Canon law also leaves room for a pastor. Canon 1245, in the Code of Canon Law, says "for a just cause and according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop, a pastor can grant in individual cases a dispensation from the obligation of observing a feast day or a day of penance or can grant a commutation of the obligation into other pious works."

If you would like to raise it, one sentence is enough, and here is wording of our own to send or say: "I ate meat on Friday without thinking. Is there anything you would suggest?"

Is chicken meat, and can you eat eggs?

Under the United States rule, meat means the flesh of mammals and birds. The USCCB page on fast and abstinence puts chicken and turkey on the meat side, with beef and pork, and fish and shellfish on the other. Eggs and dairy are not meat for this rule. For a reader standing at a counter, here is the short version:

The same USCCB page reports an older moral-theology view, that abstinence ordinarily covered animal products apart from gelatin, butter, cheese and eggs. So, a person who wants to keep the day more strictly has a tradition to lean on for the broth and the gravy.

Rules can differ by country. In Mexico, one text of the bishops' conference norms speaks of red meat, so a reader there asks the parish how poultry is treated. The Orthodox fast is wider, and it comes later in this post.

Who has to keep the rule, and who is excused?

Canon 1252, in the Code of Canon Law, says, "The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year." The USCCB puts fasting at eighteen through fifty-nine, and describes it this way: "When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal."

The USCCB recognizes that illness, pregnancy, nursing, manual labor and other serious circumstances affect the obligation to fast. Its materials say people who cannot keep the fast for health reasons are not bound to endanger their health. For Eastern Catholics, a Ukrainian Catholic guide names children, the elderly, the sick, pregnant or nursing women and people doing hard physical labor among those excused.

If you have a history of an eating disorder, or you take medication that depends on regular meals, follow your doctor first; fasting rules excuse anyone whose health needs regular meals. An idea of our own: have a word with a priest and with your own doctor before Lent begins. The Church's own rules already make room for you.

A new believer asked exactly this, posted on Reddit in r/Lutheranism under the title "My first lent (new to faith). Medical exemption from fasts?". A reply there said, "I don’t encourage anyone to risk their health with fasting."

Which days count, and how does the rule differ by country?

Canon 1251 says, "Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday." Canon 1253 lets each bishops' conference set the detail and substitute other forms of penance, which is why the rule looks different from one country to the next. Both canons are in the Code of Canon Law.

In the United States, the Fridays of Lent are days without meat. For Fridays outside Lent, the bishops' 1966 pastoral statement keeps every Friday as a day of penance, gives first place to going without meat, and lets a person choose another penance.

Catholics read that statement in different ways. One reply posted on Reddit in r/Catholicism, in this thread, put it this way: "It wholly replaces outside of Lent the only requirement that was binding under pain of sin with a strong encouragement to do penance that does not bind under pain of sin."

In England and Wales, the bishops restored meatless Fridays all year in 2011, and Good Friday is a day of fasting and abstinence. The conference's Friday Penance leaflet and the Diocese of East Anglia set it out.

In Spain, the bishops' conference keeps every Friday as a day of abstinence and says the Lenten Fridays cannot be swapped for another practice. Fridays outside Lent can be replaced by Scripture reading, almsgiving, charity, piety or bodily mortification. In Mexico, the bishops' norms let abstinence be replaced by a work of charity, piety or another real sacrifice on every day except Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

For any other country, your own bishops' conference or parish has the local rule. In Holy Week itself, Good Friday is the day both rules fall on. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which in 2027 falls on February 10.

Does the Bible say you cannot eat meat on Fridays?

The Friday rule is Church discipline, and Catholic writers such as EWTN present it that way rather than as a single verse. Several passages touch the subject, and each is worth reading in its setting.

Paul wrote to the church at Colossae not to let anyone judge them over food, drink or holy days:

16 Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, 17 which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.

Writing to the church in Rome, Paul says one person keeps a day to the Lord and another treats every day alike:

5 One man esteems one day as more important. Another esteems every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn’t eat, to the Lord he doesn’t eat, and gives God thanks.

In the same chapter, giving up meat or wine is something good when it spares another believer from stumbling:

It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak.

Jesus speaks of fasting too. Asked by John's disciples why his friends did not fast, he said they would once the bridegroom was taken away:

14 Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?” 15 Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

In Matthew 6:16-18, Jesus asks that fasting be done without a show. Isaiah 58:3-7 describes a fast that frees the oppressed and feeds the hungry.

What these passages give is room for each person's conscience, care for the person at the same table, and fasting as something Jesus expected his followers to do after he was gone. They pull in different directions, and churches read them differently.

Did Jesus say not to eat meat?

In Mark 7:14-23, Jesus teaches that what goes into a person from outside is not what defiles them. After the resurrection, he eats broiled fish in front of his disciples in Luke 24:42-43.

Why did God let us eat meat?

At the start, plants are given as food:

29 God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.

After the flood, every moving thing is given as food, apart from flesh with its blood:

1 God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you will be on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky. Everything that moves along the ground, and all the fish of the sea, are delivered into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you. 4 But flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat.

Leviticus 11, Mark 7 and Acts 10 are read at length in can Christians eat pork.

Why Friday, why meat, and what to do on the day itself

The Didache, from the late first or early second century, already names Wednesday and Friday as Christian fast days. Tertullian writes about fasting and the "stations" kept on set days. The Catechism, paragraph 1438, says, "The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year, Lent and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord, are intense moments of the Church’s penitential practice."

Two books tell the longer story. Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast (1987) treats medieval fasting as devotion, discipline and social meaning together. Brian Fagan's Fish on Friday (2006) tells how fish became the customary Friday food. No single reason covers every century. Paul VI's Paenitemini (1966) let bishops' conferences set the practical forms.

On the day itself, Mark 15:33-37 records darkness from the sixth hour to the ninth, and the death at the ninth hour. That is why many Christians keep noon to three, with the Three Hours' Devotion, the Seven Last Words, the Stations of the Cross, and the three o'clock Divine Mercy hour.

Some people set a quiet minute for the afternoon.

The Catholic Liturgy of the Lord's Passion has the Passion reading, the solemn intercessions, the veneration of the cross and Communion from hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday. The USCCB's Triduum questions and EWTN on Good Friday explain more.

On what to wear, the priest's vestments are red, per the USCCB 2027 calendar, and the congregation wears what it would to any service. An idea of our own: a minute of quiet at three o'clock, wherever you are.

How do other churches keep Good Friday?

Orthodox: the Orthodox Church in America says, "On Great Friday those who have the strength follow the practice of the early Church and keep a total fast." Its strict fasts leave out meat, animal products, fish, oil and wine, and it sends people to their priest for how to apply them. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese describes some keeping a total fast until the Epitaphios service and others a modified rule. Orthodox Pascha in 2027 falls on May 2, per the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese calendar.

Anglican: the Church of England says there are no particular instructions on how a fast must be kept, and it marks Good Friday with solemn worship, prayer and reflection. One person wrote on Reddit in r/Anglicanism, in this thread, "Never adhered to the meat thing on Friday, thought that was Roman Catholic and Orthodox only."

Episcopal: a commenter posted on Reddit in r/Episcopalian, in this thread, "There is no wrong way to observe Lent, as long as you do something to observe it!"

Lutheran: the ELCA keeps Good Friday as a principal observance without a meat rule. Another reply posted on Reddit in r/Lutheranism, in the thread quoted earlier, said, "The aim is to be a practice for prayer, not a work."

Methodist: John Wesley's Sermon 27 defends fasting as part of prayer and self-denial. Baptist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches generally mark the day with worship, Scripture and prayer, with fasting left to the person.

For a household with a Catholic and a Protestant at one table, here is wording of our own: "I'm keeping Friday meatless this year. Would fish suit everyone, or shall I make two things?"

If you cannot stop replaying it

The International OCD Foundation describes scrupulosity as "A subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) involving religious or moral obsessions," with repeated reassurance seeking, repeated confession and mental review among its signs. It is a pointer to help, not a diagnosis of anyone who reads it. Somebody posted on Reddit in r/OCD, in this thread, "I keep seeking reassurance over and over."

An idea of our own: tell one priest once, and let his answer stand. If the replaying spreads to other things, a doctor or counselor is a good person to talk to. What does communion mean also reads scrupulosity for the reader who is afraid of receiving.

The passage Bible Nudge offers for guilt and regret is Psalm 103:8-12, a psalm of praise describing mercy that does not keep accusing:

Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness. He will not always accuse; neither will he stay angry forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Two verses later comes a line about people as they are: "For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust." It gives you a God who knows how frail people are, in verse 14's own words. Psalm 103:8-12 with the verses around it shows the setting, and bible verses for guilt and shame reads the whole psalm. One question to hold: "What are you still holding that this says has already been carried away?"

Ordinary meals are where most of these questions start.

Then there are the things said at the table that land hard. Each has a better line, and these are our own wording. "That's a mortal sin," said about a forgotten mouthful, becomes "If it's bothering you, have a word with the priest. Forgetting and choosing are different things." "Real Christians don't bother with that rule" becomes "I don't keep it myself, and I'm happy to have fish with you tonight."

"God doesn't care what you eat" becomes "It matters to you, so it matters to me." A joke about an Orthodox friend's fast becomes "How can I make Friday easier for you?" You may recognize something you have said yourself, and that is all right; a kinder line is always available next time.

Questions people ask

Is it a sin for a Protestant to eat meat on Good Friday? The meatless rule is Catholic Church law. The ELCA and the Church of England, for example, keep no universal rule about meat, and each Protestant church sets its own practice for fasting.

Does a child have to keep the rule? Canon 1252 binds abstinence from the fourteenth year, and fasting from adulthood. It also asks pastors and parents to teach even younger children the true meaning of penance, so a school lunch is a chance to talk about the day rather than a breach.

What if my country is not listed? Canon 1253 lets each bishops' conference set the detail. Ask your parish or look up your own bishops' conference for the local rule.

Support for a heavier night

If the worry has turned into thoughts of ending your life, reach a person tonight.

• United States: call 988 or text 988, or reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline online. Help in Spanish is available.
• Canada: call or text 9-8-8.
• United Kingdom and Ireland: Samaritans on 116 123.
• Australia: Lifeline on 13 11 14.
• Spain: the Línea 024.
• Mexico: Línea de la Vida on 800 911 2000.
• Argentina: the Centro de Asistencia al Suicida.
• Bogotá, Colombia: Línea 106.
• Everywhere else: Find A Helpline.

Where to go next

Before next Friday, decide what you will eat that day. If you are Catholic and still unsure about the meal already eaten, send your parish the one sentence from above: "I ate meat on Friday without thinking. Is there anything you would suggest?"

Bible Nudge offers one passage with the verses around it. Find a passage.