Fast or Feast?

I was raised a Protestant, so I claim only an outsider's understanding of things Catholic. Over the years  some aspects of that branch of the Christian faith have become clearer to me, but others have faded into mystery. Here’s one of them:

When I was young, my Catholic friends could not eat meat on Fridays, all year long. (Wednesdays, too, my wife tells me.) In place of meat, they could eat fish. Sometime through the years, permission was given to eat meat on Fridays most of the year, but to abstain from it on the Fridays of Lent. The point, I believe, was (and is) to symbolize sacrifice by giving up something very important on a regular basis. That’s a good idea, though Protestants are not all that much into it, perhaps because many of us didn’t have to eat fish when we were young.

In my adulthood I have become more and more suspicious of the “sacrifice” part of it, however. The reason is the ubiquitous “Friday fish fries” that suddenly become very popular every Lent–some 150 of them in the Cleveland area alone, according to this morning’s Plain Dealer. These are no doubt successful because now non-Catholics can get into fish dinners (especially the all-you-can-eat variety) as easily as can Catholics.

If you are not interested in mass-produced meals of fried fish and French fries and cole slaw, you can easily buy some choicer fish and marine animal foods in any supermarket and make yourself a really good meal. There are sales on everything fishy this time of year. And restaurants outdo one another offering mouth-watering fish on their menus, at prices ranging from cheap to outrageously expensive, usually in inverse proportion to the amount of food you get on your plate.

So my question is this: what has happened to the “sacrificial” aspect of eating fish instead of meat? Seems to me it’s been lost in the shuffle, with Catholic parishes hauling in the profits from folks who may think eating fish during Lent is some kind of patriotic duty. Seems to me the only sacrifice is being made by the Roman Catholic faithful who staff the kitchens and halls of their churches this time of year. (Are the world’s fish stocks being sacrificed as well? No doubt.)

So tell me, my Catholic friends whom I have not offended too much: does the Lenten practice of eating fish on Fridays seem like a sacrifice to you? Does it serve a spiritual purpose any more? Is this still a fast, or is it more like a feast?

Hey: what about going vegetarian during Lent? That’s something this Protestant could get into.