Sir, – Melanie McDonagh suggests that fasting and self-denial are good for us ("Thank God lent is almost over – tradition of fasting and feasting makes psychological, physical and spiritual sense", Opinion & Analysis, April 15th).
This may be so, but the spirit of Gregory the Great was alive and well in the Meath Diocese of the 1950s where Lenten restrictions were particularly onerous.
There, adults were to restrict their daily diet to “one main meal and two collations” for the entire six weeks before Easter, early or late.
Presumably the size of the collations was spelled out as well. These were so meticulously followed that my hard-working widowed mother weighed her food to ensure she was fully compliant.
This not long after the lifting of rationing, and in a time of hardship and little in the way of luxuries to most of the population as a whole. – Yours, etc,
MARION WALSH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.