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Show ! 1U WBOMS P1 LEIMT t x : ' For the Diocese of Salt Lake. I : Z BY OUR RT. REV. BISHOP. T 4. f f 4-4- The following are the Lenten Regulations for the Diocese of Salt Lake for the year 1900: Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, falls this year on the 28th of February. Febru-ary. 1. All the days of Lent except Sunday are fast days of obligation. 2. All persons under 21 years or over 60 years of age, those who are engaged in hard labor, the sick and convalescent and those who cannot fast without injury in-jury to their health, are exempt from the obligation of fasting. All bound to keep the fast shall take but or meal a day except on Sundays. Sun-days. 4. The meal permitted on fast days should be taken about noon. 5. A collation is permitted in the evening. 6. When the principal meal cannot conveniently be taken about noon, the order may be inverted so that the collation may be taken about noon and the dinner in the evening. 7. General usage has made it lawful to take in the morning a cup of coffee, cof-fee, tea or chocolate with a small piece of bread. 8. Necessity and custom have authorized the use of lard instead of butter in the preparation of all permitted foods. 9. By dispensation the use of flesh meats is permitted at all meals on Sundays and once a day at the principal meal on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays Thurs-days and Saturdays, with the exception of Ember Saturday and the last Saturday Sat-urday of Lent. 10. Persons exempt from the obligation of fasting may partake of flesh meat at all meals on days when the use of meat is permitted at the principal meal. 11. Flesh meat and fish are not to be used at the same meal during Lent, even on Sundays. 12. The use of butter, cheese, milk and eggs is permitted every day in Lent. 13. By virtue of an lndult granted: by the Holy See March 15, 1895, working-men working-men and their families are allowed the use of flesh meat once a day on all the fast and abstinence days throughout the year, with the exception of all Fridays, Ash Wednesday, the Wednesday and Saturday of Holy Week and the Vigil of Christmas. Those who are exempt from the obligation of fasting fast-ing are permitted to use meat more than once a day on all days except those before mentioned, namely, Fridays, Ash Wednesdays, the Wednesday and Saturday of Holy Week and the Vigil of Christmas. Those who avail themselves them-selves of this lndult are not permitted to use flesh meat and fish at the same meal, and are earnestly exhorted to perform some other act of mortification, such as abstinence from intoxicating liquors. 14. The Paschal time extends from the first Sunday in Lent until Trinity Sunday, inclusive, during which time all Catholics who have attained the proper age are bound to receive Holy Communion worthily. 15. To afford the faithful opportunities of gaining the graces of the Lenten season, it is hereby ordered that in addition to the usual Sunday devotions, Lenten exercises be held on two evenings of each week in all the churches of the Diocese, to which are attached resident pastors. On one of the evenings an instruction is to be given, on the other the Stations of the Cross, and permission per-mission is hereby given for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on both evenings. 16. The faithful are reminded that besides the obligation of fasting imposed im-posed by the Church, the season of Lent should be in a very special manner a time of earnest prayer, of sorrow for sin, of abestension from amusements, which, not sinful in themselves, are permitted during other portions of the year, and of generous alms giving to the poor. 17. To comply with the Decree of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, a collection will be taken up on the first Sunday of Lent at all the Masses and at Vespers for our Holy Father, the Pope. L. SCANLAN, Bishop of Salt Lake. The Obligations of .Lent What should be done was fully explained in the last issue ofThe Intermountain Catholic. Its origin dates with Apostolic times. From the dawn of creation God set apart certain days and seasons to be devoted to His service. Those who had turned aside from the true worship wor-ship of God did not forget the tradition of their forefathers. They had their time of sacrifice and season of worship. The primitive belief of our Godhead, revealed by God Himself to our first parents, was long before the time of Moses changed by pagan nations into a belief of many gods. In the synagogue the descendants of Abraham were selected se-lected and chosen to preserve, and perpetuate the true worship of God, and were separated from idol worshipers. Moses, the first of inspired writers, instituted in-stituted feasts and fasts, designated the rites and ceremonies to be observed in the tabernacle, and in a general way to prepare not only the Israelites, but the Gentiles for the promised Messiah, whose advent was also foretold by the Prophets. The disposition made by them of time, when services should be held, feasts- observed and' fasts instituted, typified the Christian ordinances of rites, feasts and fasts. All natipns-of antiquity, who had separated themselves from the synagogue, syna-gogue, were pagan. They, too, prompted by a law of nature, and the reminiscences remin-iscences of the unbroken tradition of the human race, had their external worship, wor-ship, feasts and fasts. The Egyptians, who are most remote in history of heathen nations, had their rites, feasts and fasts. Their elaborate ritual contained con-tained prayers and ceremonies for their dead, who were embalmed and interred in-terred in caves of the mountains They were firm believers in the immortality immortal-ity of the soul. Instinctively they had to worship something, if only the sea, sun, moon, stars and other planets. To them modern society is indebted for first erecting theatres, where their ceremonies were carried out. Their birthday, as well as that of their divinities, and the day of the dedication of their temples, were celebrated with the greatest pomp. They had numerous festivals and feasts, when they marched in procession and paid homage to their gods. Long before Genesis was written magnificent temples adorned the banks of the Nile. The gods of the ancient Mexicans and natives of Peru were countless. The earliest tribes of American Indians had their Great Spirit, whom they worshiped by the sacrifice of a white dog. The Druids of northern Europe took their worship from the Greeks and Romans, and had their feasts, fasts and festivals each year. But these ceremonies, religious observances and worship wor-ship were superstitious. Be it so, yet they presuppose the original belief in God, like the counterfeit presupposes the genuine coin. With the superstition or error there is a mixture of truth, which shows that a Supreme Being, as believed by all people at all times, and handed down from father to child, must be true. Error or superstition, far from disproving this belief, confirms it. Taking the history of the human'race full of reverence for the altar and a burning desire tor God and the non-credo I believe nothing of the Atheist is more of a contradiction than the most superstitious belief of the heathen. Voltaire, though ascoffer of religion, and the chief of unbelievers, was"logi-cal was"logi-cal enough to admit "that the maxim, which denies the necessity of religion is absurd." ' - With the knowledge and belief that Gcd is, what more natural' than that the Catholic church, the successor of the synagogue, should institute certain seasons of the year, like Lent, for fasting and public thanksgiving to God, who has granted so many favors and mercies to man? The observance of Lent according to the mind of the church incites in the heart of the worshiper internal gratitude, which is intensified by the external thank3 rendered. To mortify the body is good for the soul. Hence the object of the church in instituting a season of fasting, which, to be efficacious and worthy of spiritual spir-itual favors from God, must, according to the intent of the church, ,be accompanied accom-panied with proper interior dispositions. The public services of the church during the Lenten season consist of the holy sacrifice of the Mass every morning; Wednesdays and Fridays in the , evening, singing the praises of God, and making the sorrowful Way of the Cross. To the thoughtful mind, who understands Catholic worship, these are the most solemn acts of religion. . The. sacrifice of the Mass is a real sacrifice of a real victim. In an un- I bloody manner. Prayers and chanting the praises of God have been ever held as moat appropriate parts of public worship. In the Way of the Cross, what may be deemed a useless ceremony, is integral in the devotion itself, ' being adapted for the edification of true worshipers. |