why do some people fast on good friday?
481781
Because Jesus says that the Father will reward you.\n\nMatthew 6:16-18 (New American Standard Bible)\n\n 16"(A)Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting (B)Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.\n\n 17"But you, when you fast, (C)anoint your head and wash your face\n\n 18so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your (D)Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.\n\nCross references:\n\n   A. Matthew 6:16 : Is 58:5\n   B. Matthew 6:16 : Matt 6:2\n   C. Matthew 6:17 : Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam 12:20\n   D. Matthew 6:18 : Matt 6:4, 6
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Since like 99.9% of Italy is Roman Catholic they go to mass(church) Easter Morning. Plus they start on Palm Sunday which is actually a week before easter, or wait, I think it started Ash Wednesday they're supposed to fast for 40 days before Easter, but most just give up something they like to eat alot, like say veal or pasta or wine etc. Anyways on Easter Sunday there is a big meal served with red wine, and most gather with family and the women all wear black, as a sign of mourning for the death of Jesus. Not really a celebration though.
151883
Most of the holidays celebrated today have a pagan origin, which means that they aroused from false religions.  These false religions used these celebrations to do bad things, like the worship of false gods and idols.  Many of the holidays today are an excuse for people to eat and drink in excess and commit acts of immorality, which, obviously, are things God condemns.
1089587
Well for the readers, The Christians gathered on the first day of the week, to celebrate the ressurection. This is why most Christians go to Church on Sunday. \n\nHowever, Since Christians rest in Jesus, everyday is a Sabbath day!!!!
994198
Unfortunately there are 'Christians'  who are Christians on Sunday just to look good for some people and for the rest of the week they are in the strip clubs, liqueur stores, and doing horrible things that they think no one sees.  It is also unfortunate that they will have a Jesus fish on the back of their car while it sits in the parking lot of a strip club or when they give somebody the finger in traffic.\n\nThen there are true Christians who actually try to do what they are supposed to do and get harassed for something they did not even say or do.  \n\nI have noticed some people say its because Christians tell them they are going to hell.  I have never told anyone that they were going to hell-even when I went out witnessing. If it weren't for Jesus I would be going to hell too.
482057
Depends: Eastern Orhodox's Good Friday or the regular Good Friday?
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Catholics can eat fish on Fridays or any other day.  During Lent, Catholics are supposed to fast on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays during lent.\n\nOn the days of fasting, Catholics are not supposed to eat meat.  Typically, they eat fish on the days of fasting.\n\nSee the source below for more information on lent.
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Since the earliest days of the Catholic Church, on every Friday throughout the year, Catholics are required to do some kind of penance. Most Catholics do not eat meat on Friday as a penance. As far as research says, no Pope introduced it, but it gradually became a practice. \nAbstaining helps us refocus on what is important and it cuts out the things that might have seemed important. By abstaining, we have better ability to concentrate on God. \n\nDuring the Season of Lent, however, the Catholic Church asks Catholics to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Catholics also should carry on the tradition of not eating meat on Fridays through Lent. \n\nOne belief of why meat was chosen is because most people feel that giving up meat (beef and chicken) is an inconvenience. \n\nThe Church asks us to inconvenience ourselves sometimes to serve as a reminder that they should always have God as a top priorty and pleasures as a lesser priorty. \n\nAnother belief is that in many poorer countries, beef is a specialty. For us to give it up, helps us to remember about people who are less fortunate than we are.
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Does God Require Fasting?\n\nGOD’S Law given through Moses required fasting only on one occasion—on the annual Day of Atonement. The Law commanded that on that day the Israelites were to ‘afflict their souls,’ which is understood to mean that they fasted. (Leviticus 16:29-31; 23:27; Psalm 35:13) However, this fast was not a mere formalism. The observance of the Day of Atonement moved the people of Israel to greater consciousness of their sinfulness and the need for redemption. They fasted on that day also to express sorrow for their sins and repentance before God.\n\nThough this was the only obligatory fast under the Mosaic Law, the Israelites observed fasts on other occasions. (Exodus 34:28; 1 Samuel 7:6; 2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Esther 4:3, 16) Included among these were voluntary fasts as a means of displaying repentance. Jehovah urged the erring people of Judah: “Come back to me with all your hearts, and with fasting and with weeping and with wailing.” This was not to be an outward show, for God goes on to say: “Rip apart your hearts, and not your garments.”—Joel 2:12-15.\n\nIn time, many fasted as an outward formalism. Jehovah detested such insincere fasting and therefore asked hypocritical Israelites: “Should the fast that I choose become like this, as a day for earthling man to afflict his soul? For bowing down his head just like a rush, and that he should spread out mere sackcloth and ashes as his couch? Is it this that you call a fast and a day acceptable to Jehovah?” (Isaiah 58:5) Rather than making a showy display of their fasting, these wayward people were asked to produce works befitting repentance.\n\nSome fasts established by the Jews met with God’s disapproval right from the outset. For example, at one time the people of Judah had four annual fasts to commemorate the calamitous events associated with Jerusalem’s siege and desolation in the seventh century B.C.E. (2 Kings 25:1-4, 8, 9, 22-26; Zechariah 8:19) After the Jews were released from captivity in Babylon, Jehovah said through the prophet Zechariah: “When you fasted . . . , and this for seventy years, did you really fast to me, even me?” God did not approve of these fasts because the Jews were fasting and mourning over judgments that had come from Jehovah himself. They were fasting because of the calamity that befell them, not because of their own wrongdoing that led to it. After they were restored to their homeland, it was time for them to rejoice instead of bemoaning the past.—Zechariah 7:5.\n\nIs Fasting for Christians?\n\nEven though Jesus Christ never commanded his disciples to fast, he and his followers fasted on Atonement Day because they were under the Mosaic Law. Additionally, some of his disciples fasted voluntarily on other occasions, since Jesus did not direct them to avoid the practice altogether. (Acts 13:2, 3; 14:23) Yet, they were never to ‘disfigure their faces that they might appear to men to be fasting.’ (Matthew 6:16) Such an external display of piety might bring admiring glances and approving nods from other humans. Nevertheless, God is not pleased with such a showy display.—Matthew 6:17, 18.\n\nJesus also spoke of his followers’ fasting at the time of his death. He was not thereby instituting a ritual fast. Instead, he was indicating a reaction to the deep sorrow they would experience. Once he was resurrected, he would be with them again, and there would no longer be such a reason for them to fast.—Luke 5:34, 35.\n\nThe Mosaic Law ended when “the Christ was offered once for all time to bear the sins of many.” (Hebrews 9:24-28) And with the end of the Law, the command to fast on Atonement Day ended. Thus, the only obligatory fast mentioned in the Bible was removed.\n\nWhat About Lent?\n\nWhat, then, is the basis for Christendom’s practice of fasting during Lent? Both Catholic and Protestant churches recognize Lent, although the manner of observing it differs from church to chu
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How can you say that the beliefs of a person are a joke? You must learn to respect the beliefs of others if you wish for them to answer your questions with a sane mind. \n\nBut no matter. To your question. It's quite difficult. You might want to elaborate. BUT: Muslim people FAST during RAMADAN[the holy month] No eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset daily so that Muslims will feel the pangs of the needy and be tempted to give more charity on the event of Eid Al-Fitr. \n\nIf you look at the site below, you might want to direct your questions there. This is the best site that I have ever seen. Good luck in your quest for knowledge, but next time, try and be a little bit more sensitive to the beliefs of others.
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That's a very good point. In the early days of Christian religion, Christians were also required to fast (not eat from sunrise to sunset) in certain times of the year. This is similar to what Muslims do. But Christians have given up this tradition just because the early practioners chose what to carry out and the bible was written a long time after Jesus's death. That's why so many things have been lost or modified. In Islam, the Quran was written at the time the Prophet Muhammed  (sm) was still alive. So, there was no chance of it being changed or modified later.
767808
Good Friday for the next 3 years is 2007-6 April 2008-Mar 21 2009-April 10\n\nEaster Sunday is 2007 8 April 2008-23 March 2009-12 April
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Until a child reaches the age of Bar Mitzvah (boys, 13) or Bat Mitzvah (girls, 12), they are not required to fast.  Anyone who is sick, elderly, pregnant, or nursing may also be exempt.  Someone whose life would be in danger is not *allowed* to fast, even if they want to.\n\nYoung children usually have a token fast of some kind.  They may get only meals and no desserts or snacks, or them may skip breakfast, for instance.  As they approach the age of Bar or Bat Mitzvah, they are allowed to fast (some kids *want* to because it makes them feel "big").  As long as they are not endangering themselves, they are allowed to do so.
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Jesus fasted for 40 days to make the devil knew that He was hungry so that the devil could tempt Him to turn stones into bread.  Remember Jesus is sinless and has no weakness so He need not have to fast to bring His flesh down.  The number 40 signifies a period of testing that leads to perfect completion.  Please note that Moses took 40 years in the wilderness to take\nEgypt out of him but Jesus has now shown the way that with the power of the Holy Spirit working in us we can take Egpyt out of us in not more than 40 days.
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Fat Tuesday is known as Shrove Tuesday and this is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent. It's a day of penitence, to clean the soul, and a day of celebration as the last chance to feast before Lent begins.\n\nShrove Tuesday is probably the Christian festival that the family enjoys most, after Christmas, of course.\n\nBut there's more to Shrove Tuesday than pigging out on pancakes or taking part in a public pancake race. The pancakes themselves are part of an ancient custom with deeply religious roots. \n\nPenitence \nShrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving that Christians used to undergo in the past. In shriving, a person confesses their sins and receives absolution for them.\n\nWhen a person receives absolution for their sins, they are forgiven for them and released from the guilt and pain that they have caused them.\n\nIn the Catholic or Orthodox context, the absolution is pronounced by a priest. \n\nThis tradition is very old. Over 1000 years ago a monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes: \n\nIn the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him.\n\nShrove Tuesday celebrations \nShrove Tuesday is a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it's the last day before Lent. \n\nLent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up. So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge yourself, and to use up the foods that aren't allowed in Lent.\n\nGiving up foods: but not wasting them \nIn the old days there were many foods that observant Christians would not eat during Lent: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.\n\nSo that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off.\n\nThe need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras; meaning fat tuesday. Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.\n\nThe origin of pancake racing \nPancake races are thought to have begun in 1445. A woman had lost track of the time on Shrove Tuesday, and was busy cooking pancakes in her kitchen.\n\nSuddenly she heard the church bell ringing to call the faithful to church for confession. The woman raced out of her house and ran all the way to church; still holding her frying pan and wearing her apron.\n\n\nGoing for gold in the pancake olympics \nOne of the most famous pancake races is held at Olney in Buckinghamshire over a 415 yard course. The rules are strict; contestants have to toss their pancake at both the start and the finish, as well as wearing an apron and a scarf. The race is followed by a church service.\n\nSince 1950 Olney has competed with Liberal in Kansas, which holds an identical race, to see which town can produce the fastest competitor. After the 2000 race, Liberal was leading with 26 wins to Olney's 24.
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Are you muslim, catholic or what?\n\nAs a muslim who fasts for a month every year, I can tell you that we certainly do see visions and neither do we talk to God (SWT). We talk to God (SWT) through prayer, but that's with nearly all religions.\n\nMaybe your religion requires you to fast in the extremes and that is why people have hallucinations?\n\nMuslims eat heartily before dawn and then fast until the sun sets, at which time they eat heartily again. So we're not really starving the whole day since we already ate so much. \n\nWhen Ramadan (The month we fast, it's in the lunar/Islamic  calendar) is in the winter, it's a breeze to do it, but during the summer, which I haven't experienced yet in Canada, it does get quite long. We can break our fast, of course, if we are about to die or something. \n\nFasting is meant to make you appreciate the things that you have in life and to feel sympathy for the poor. It is a time to reflect upon the many evils other people have to go through. It is a time to to be thankful to Allah (SWT) for giving you what you have.\n\nFasting is not meant to give you medical problems. If you're pregnant, sick, or travelling (there are more reaons than this), then you don't need to fast in Islam, but you have to make-up for it if you were travelling or if you had your period.\n\nSo yeah, you should have directed your question to the religion you are talking about becuase a lot of religions require followers to fast.
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It's not just from Paganism. It's about nature, and the yearly cycle. Think about it - harvest time is when there's more than enough food, so often people share it with the less fortunate. The food keeps for a limited time though, so in winter - at Yuletide - there's a big feast to use up the perishables that won't last until Spring. \n\nThen in Spring there's Eastre - at a time when birds are laying lots of eggs, and various plants are beginning to produce edible parts for the first time since the previous year. So people can finish off the emergency rations instead of saving them.