What were these notices, then? They were the notices about this great season on which we are entering: the holy season of Lent, the most important one of the whole year.
What is the first one of these notices which you have or have not just heard? You don't know. Well, it is this: _All the week-days of Lent, from Ash Wednesday till Faster Sunday, are fast-days of precept, on one meal, with the allowance of a moderate collation in the evening_. Fast-days--do you know what that means? I venture to say that many of you do not; or, if you do, you do not act as if you did. Some people that you would think had more sense seem to think that a fast-day is about the same thing as a Friday through the year, except that it is not so much harm to eat meat on a fast-day as on a Friday. It is hard to understand how any one can be so stupid.
What is a fast-day, then? It is a day, as you hear in the notices, on one meal. That does not mean two other full meals besides, and plenty of lunches in between. It means what it says--one full meal, and only one. The church has, it is true, allowed, as the notices say, a moderate collation in the evening What does that mean? As much as you want to take? No. How much, then? Eight ounces is the amount commonly assigned. { 149} That is to say, you have your dinner, and a supper of eight ounces in weight. Is that all? No, not quite. Custom has also made it lawful to take a cup of tea or coffee and a small piece of bread, without butter, in the morning. This is an important point; for if this will prevent a headache and enable you to get through with your duties as usual, you are bound to take it, and not get off from the fast on the ground that you cannot keep a strict fast on nothing at all till noon.
This, then, is what is meant by a fast-day. It may be a day of abstinence from flesh-meat, or it may not be. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday you can have meat, but at dinner only; and no fish, oysters, etc., when you have meat--the tea or coffee and the eight ounces the same those days as on the others. But on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday no meat at any time. And remember, nothing can be eaten on a fast-day but just as I have described--no lunches, large or small, between meals.