Easter is right around the corner, and if you have not yet begun preparing for one of the biggest holidays of the here, well hop to it! Palm Sunday is this week Sunday on the 25^th of March, and next week Friday on the 30^th of March will be Good Friday otherwise known as Holy Friday in the Christian calendar. We here at Sir Holiday are so excited for our own office Easter celebrations, however we were quite curious over how exactly some people celebrate Good Friday. It seems that the main way a large amount of people within the Christian and Catholic world observe the occasion is by skipping meat on this day and instead choose to eat fish. Let’s investigate the reasons behind this.

In Christianity, Good Friday is the day upon which Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans and through the sacrifice of his life, enabled all of humanity to be freed from sin. This day from the beginning of the establishment of Christianity has been earmarked, as a day where all Christians can set aside their differences and come together in unity to remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for them. Therefore, the Church chose to institute a means of offering thanks in a way that allowed all people to take part.

How do Christians and Catholic offer thanks to Jesus for laying down his life and redeeming them for all sins past and present? They do this by choosing to forsake all meat products on Good Friday and instead eat fish. This is why you will see many people heading down to their local fish and chips shop on Friday for afternoon lunch or tea if you’re in England.

You might be wondering why fish got the green light but no other animal flesh did, well the Church laws had a specific scope and fish didn’t happen to fall into it. The scope of cannon law was that all animals that belonged to land, this included all farm animals, as well as game and birds, could not be eaten on Good Friday. However, it is important to note that when the laws were being instated into official religious cannon, the vast majority of the populace were fisherman. The fact that so many of the local population were fishermen centuries ago, led to the perception that meat was only for special occasions, whereas fish was a common food.

But times have changed and no longer is fish an everyday common food, rather fish has become far more of a luxury commodity. If you are wondering if there are any other food related rights to do with Good Friday, you would be right. All Catholics are not only expected to abstain from eating any meat during the day, but they are also only allowed to eat one meal on the day. The reason for eating only one meal is that Catholics fast both on Good Friday and on Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of Lent.

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Fish food:

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Fish image:

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/11/28/13/08/the-fishermen-2983615__340.jpg