Penitential Fridays

Soon after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, our American Bishops voted to allow Catholics to choose the type of penance they would observe on Fridays.  For centuries, abstinence from meat had been obligatory, and it was taken for granted that Friday Fare would be fish, eggs, cheese, pasta or some sort of vegetarian meal (even before the veggie craze became popular). That this was a choice might have missed the headlines, and most Catholics took it as a lifting of the ban and something else to discard, as was the sometimes misinformed spirit of the post-Vatican II era.  Some families continued the practice of meatless Fridays as a means of at least to some degree uniting their hearts with the heart of Jesus who on Good Friday emtpied himself to the point of death on the cross to show his love for us by atoning for our sins against God our Father. By doing nothing special on Fridays we distance ourselves from this great act of love.
In the context of returning love for love, we might enter again into the spirit of  penitential  Fridays by some sort of act of charity such as volunteering on Fridays at a local soup kitchen, visiting  a retirement home, or making a spiritual communion with Jesus, if we can't get to Mass, dropping into a perpetual adoration chapel,  or making some sort of dietary sacrifice...yes, perhaps going meatless.  All of this, not by obligation but by choice to take that extra step to show our love, and to grow in our love for Jesus, who held back nothing in order to gift  us with his  loves and the freedom that comes with loving and being loved.
Bro. Rene