Why are Catholics supposed to eat fish on Fridays?

Through the years, when I was in seminary and now as a priest, Catholics and Protestants alike have asked me this question. Some are surprised by the answer.
 
Catholics are actually not required by the Church to eat fish on Fridays.
 
In the dioceses of the United States, however, those Catholics age 14 onwards are required to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays during Lent. Not doing so would be a sin against God and His Church. (Note that abstinence from meat applies outside of Lent as well. But on those Fridays, we are able also to choose in its place another type of penance.) Since it is common to replace meat with a type of fish, some have concluded we are supposed to eat fish. This of course is not true. 
 
On one particular occasion after I responded to this question, someone said, “It’s just another way for the Catholic Church to control people.”
 
For some time now I have thought about this comment about the Church and others like it. Generally, there are two groups of people who dissent. In the first group are those who are ignorant maybe through no fault of their own. They try to understand what the Church teaches and are fairly open to an explanation. Then there are those who are rebellious. Even after a logical answer they still do not want to trust authority. This of course overflows into disobedience to Christ and His bride the Church. We all, of course, have less or more of the latter in us; it’s called sin.
 
When God created humanity ages ago, He created us for Himself. He surely did not need us but He wanted us to experience His life, love, and joy. Before the fall, our first parents continually choose to put God first in their lives. In saying “yes” to God they were filled with God’s attributes of love and life. Thus, they naturally would say “no” to the things that would break their relationship with God, that is, with love and life. This “yes” as we know changed into a “no” when they ate the fruit of the tree. 
 
Since that fall from God’s grace, humanity has been in a rebellion against God. We have become disordered and disoriented and often settle for creatures rather than the Creator.
 
When the Son of God arrived in visible form in the person of Jesus, He began to change the rebellion back into a “yes” through the humility of His life, death, and resurrection. By joining ourselves to Christ and through the grace of the sacraments, we are capable, once again, to deny ourselves the things that take away eternal life and love. In choosing Jesus above all things, we, once again, enter into the joy of Paradise. Therefore, as Christian disciples, we must time and again deny ourselves material and sensual things to focus our attention more fully on God who is the Christian’s love, life, and joy. This act is called penance, which abstinence from meat is a subcategory.
 
So, let’s go back to the topic of abstinence from meat on Fridays. Why does the Church choose to abstain from meat, and why on Fridays?
 
Meat is known as a food of the rich. By abstaining from its delightful smell and delicious taste, we as members of the Church enter into a bit of what Christ did. He entered into the poverty of humanity so that our humanity might be conquered for God in the full “yes” to Him. So, too, we deny ourselves the riches of this world so as to conquer with Christ our fallen humanity and the devil who prowls around looking to destroy us. Only in denying ourselves of these passing riches are we able to receive the riches of life with God.
 
And, why Fridays? For Christians, Friday has always been a special day to become poor with Christ. Friday is the day that Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross for our salvation. Christians have always looked upon this day as a reminder to practice the perfect “yes” of Christ to the Father. It is also a day to suffer with Christ for the sanctification of the Church.
 
The Church, therefore, gives us this rule not to control us but to remind us to detach ourselves from things that are passing away so that we might receive those things which are eternal—life, love, and the joy of God. Any good and loving parent would command the same of his or her children, not to control them, but out of love.
 
Fr. Evinger is parochial vicar at St. Joseph in Williston. If you have a question you were afraid to ask, now is the time to ask it! Simply email your question to [email protected] with the “Question Afraid to Ask” in the subject line.