On Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.
I’m just not getting why it’s OK for me to eat an expensive seafood meal on Fridays during Lent, but not chicken or a hamburger. Where’s the logic?
Good question. On Fridays during Lent, Catholics between eighteen and fifty-nine may have one full, meatless 
meal. All food eaten at other times during the day should comprise less than a full meal, and we’re to eat no solid food between meals. You’re right; blowing out at dinner with lobster or the like defeats the purpose of sacrifice and penance. Some schools of thought hold that we abstain from the likes of beef, chicken, pork, and mutton on fasting days because those animals were the ones sacrificed at the temple, and we are reminded at this time of year that Jesus is the true sacrifice, offering himself up willingly so that our sins could be forgiven.
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