While all of Lent is devoted to repentance, penance, and meditations on Jesus’s death, the Fridays in Lent especially are occasions for bringing to mind the sacrifice of Good Friday. Consequently, fasting is appropriate…but why fish?

It may seem odd to our modern sensibilities, which classify fish as animals, to eat fish on “meatless” days. To understand the reason behind this ancient Christian tradition requires recognizing that the practice long predates the English language, and that “carnis,” usually translated as “meat,” applied only to the flesh of land animals and birds.

Meat, in ancient times, was a luxury, while fish was food for the poor and common people. One might feast by killing the fatted calf, but one wouldn’t feast with fish. Consequently, fish became associated with the penitential meals on the somber days of Lent.