“In respect of its tail, it is altogether a fish, having been juridically declared such by the faculty of medicine of Paris, in consequence of which declaration, the faculty of theology have decided that it might be lawfully eaten on meagre days.” – Fr. Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, S.J., Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, Volume III, 1744.
In the days leading up to the start of Lent, many Catholics around the world begin pondering that age-old question, “what will I give up this year?” Far fewer, I suspect, will be pondering the question “what really counts as a fish?” as they look ahead to Lent’s six-week march of meatless Fridays and other days of abstinence. To modern ears, the question seems too trivial to merit serious discussion (unless, that is, you live in New Orleans).
Is a beaver a fish? Those inclined to scoff at this question might pause to consider the matter. After all, like fish, beavers’ bodies are built for swimming and they spend much of their lives in the water.
The beaver’s proper biological categorization was not an abstract question for the Native Americans, Jesuit missionaries, and other European settlers who long ago inhabited New France, a vast colonial territory that stretched from Quebec into modern-day Minnesota and Manitoba. New France was a land defined by harsh winters, scarce food, and the constant danger of starvation. It was also a place where beavers were plentiful.
Food insecurity was a fact of daily life in New France, and Jesuit missionaries’ accounts frequently reference periods of prolonged fasting and famine. It was not uncommon, reports Fr. Paul LeJeune, S.J., to go for many days without food, all while enduring strenuous travel through the snowy cold. In one vignette, LeJeune recalls a hungry child who suddenly threw himself to the ground to get at a piece of bone he had tossed to the dogs. He goes on to describe the tears of children struggling to brave their hunger pangs through long winters.
No matter how much a person claims to love their morning bacon, giving up meat on a Lenten Friday is not exactly a question of life and death today. For inhabitants of New France, on the other hand, such religious disciplines only added complexity to dietary choice in a land where food of any kind was often dangerously scarce. And it was not only Lenten Fridays that were a concern for the people of New France – in preconciliar Catholicism, the faithful would abstain from meat most Fridays of the year. When other observances were added, the total number of yearly abstinence days could reach over 100.
New circumstances called for adaptation as hunger sharpened the stomachs of the settlers. Beavers, whose fatty tails provided significant nutritional value, were a common source of sustenance in otherwise lean times for the Native populations. Faced with New France’s scarcity and the obligations of their faith, Catholics there began seriously to ask themselves, “might a beaver be considered a fish?” Church leaders forwarded the matter to the Sorbonne, in keeping with the custom of colonial churches deferring such questions to theological authorities in the mother country.
As Fr. Pierre de Charlevoix, S.J., reports in the excerpt above, the theologians of Paris considered the matter and declared that a beaver’s tail did in fact make the creature classifiable as a fish. With this, beaver became permissible to eat on fasting days when other meats were off-limits. In light of the realities of life in New France, the Church adapted its practice so that people could eat without compromising their religious principles.
Inhabitants of Michigan did them one better. If a beaver is a fish, then wait… couldn’t a muskrat also count as a fish? Local Detroit tradition holds that Fr. Gabriel Richard, a revered pioneer priest in the late 1700s, sought a similar dispensation for his flock to eat muskrat during Lent. After all, the muskrat, like the beaver, is a semi-aquatic creature. To this day, some Catholic parishes in the Detroit metro area opt for Lenten Muskrat dinners over Lenten Fish Frys, a living reminder of the Church’s willingness to make its teaching meet human need with flexibility.
While this case of classifying beavers and muskrats might seem like mere historical curiosity, or perhaps an instance of legalism carried to absurd conclusions, the attitude of adaptation it represents offers an important spiritual reminder as we embark on our own Lenten journeys. God generously invites us to adapt and be flexible as we strive to grow in relationship with him.
The Church recognized in its “beavers are fish” decision that Lent’s goal is not the enforcement of rules about what to eat and not eat, rules that this case would only have led to increased suffering for the faithful. Lent’s goal is to help people grow closer to God, and that requires a spirit of adaptability. As the Jesuits of New France observed in their writings, it was difficult to teach about supernatural truths when the people were entirely preoccupied with finding food.
Lent is a season for well-discerned adaptation in how we live our life of faith. It’s a time to reflect on how we are walking with God and consider what parts of our lives need a reorientation in light of where we find ourselves in relationship with Him.
Often, that does mean giving up certain things and making intentional sacrifices during Lent. However, if we fall into a mindset that this season is only a time for rules and adjustments to our Friday diet, then whatever our good intentions may be, we will miss the deeper invitation of this season.
Every Christian faces the challenge of growing deeper in relationship with Jesus, and Lent offers a unique context for focusing our energies on this goal. “To be human is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often,” St. John Henry Newman reminds us. In this season of conversion, Lent invites us to ask Jesus honestly where tangible change is needed in our life. The challenge is to generously respond to his invitation.
Since change and adaptation are rarely pleasant, Lent poses a concrete challenge. However accommodating the theologians of Paris may have been to the conveniences of beaver meat, Fr. Charlevoix found little joy in accommodating his palate to life in New France. “I give you my word,” he writes when describing the flavor of smoked beaver, “I have never known anything worse.”
He ate it all the same. Charlevoix recognized that momentary discomfort was less important than the way God was inviting him to be grounded in the reality of his circumstances.
The lesson of the beaver and muskrat is not about God smiling on clever loopholes, but about His desire to walk with us in the place where we are and accompany us to a deeper relationship with Him. Whatever changes we might make or things we might give up, Lent calls us above all to trust that Jesus’s guiding hand is leading us on this journey. Once we embrace that wonderful truth, we open ourselves to the spirit of adaptability modeled by the people of New France, and come to recognize that the challenges of the Lenten road ahead are the very places where Jesus will be nearest to us.
God will be there as you make the journey, for as Fr. LeJeune consolingly reflected from his own experience of trusting the Lord, “it is wonderful how God takes pleasure in abundantly communicating himself to souls which have abandoned all and given themselves wholly to him.”
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Image: Fr. Marquette Exploring the Shores of Lake Superior, mural by Dewey Albinson, located in the U.S. Post Office of Marquette, Michigan. Public domain.
