Fish on Friday

If you are Catholic, your meal this evening will probably be fish. 

As one who spent 25 years in the Catholic church I can tell you that I never understood why.  If you ask the question at uscatholic.org, it says the tradition suggests a number of reasons, and they cite:

·         Foregoing meat was forgoing a luxury

·        Since Friday was the day that Christ died, abstaining from the shedding (and consuming) of blood seems appropriate.

·        Friday, the sixth day, was also the day that God created animals, so abstaining from meat is a symbolic “stay of execution” for cows, pigs, and sheep—just as the cross saves us from eternal death.

And finally, the website says,

·        Hebrew scriptures also tell of Leviathan, a gigantic primordial sea-creature that represents death. So, carving up and eating Leviathan on the day that Christ killed death makes great sense to the biblical imagination.

Okay, so according to uscatholic.org these are the reasons why Catholics eat fish on Fridays (particularly during lent).  But in my church, which is a non-denominational Bible based church, we’re taught that Jesus didn’t come to start a religion, as so many times “religion” is at the heart of what’s wrong in the world.  Rather, Jesus came to enable a relationship with God. 

For that reason, when I think about “fish on Friday,” I am immediately reminded of the verses in Matthew 4:19 where Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee.  There he spotted two brothers, Simon (later called Peter), and Andrew.  The brothers were fishermen and they were casting their nets into the sea.  Jesus called to them and said, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!”

So now this Friday (and actually EVERY DAY), that’s the type of fish I hope to honor God with.

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