02/03/2022
ASH WEDNESDAY IS A DAY OF:
✓FASTING (18-59 YEARS OLD)
✓ABSTINENCE (14 AND ABOVE)
A friendly reminder from your HugotSeminarista family:
Today is ASH WEDNESDAY. As Catholics, we are encouraged to do the following practices: FASTING and ABSTINENCE.
(1) FASTING
- It is a form of penance that involves limiting kinds or amount of food or drink consumption.
- Catholics who are 18-59 years old are eligible to this practice.
- Days of fasting (with abstinence) are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
- During fasting, the faithful should only eat 1 regular meal and 2 small meals (should not exceed the main amount of the main meal)
- Fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk).
(2) ABSTINENCE
- It is another form of penance that involves refraining from kinds of food or drink.
- This should be practiced by Catholics who are 14 years old and above (until death).
- During abstinence, the faithful should refrain from eating meat (i.e. flesh and organs of mammals and birds), but may consume fish and shellfish.
- Days of abstinence are Fridays in Lent.
N.B. Some people can be excused from fasting and abstinence. They are:
- persons with disabilities which make it difficult to understand or observe the practice (e.g. people with mental health concerns)
- the sick, frail, pregnant, or nursing women, according to need for meat or nourishment
- manual laborers, according to need
- guests at a meal who cannot excuse themselves without giving great offence or causing enmity
- those in other situations of moral or physical impossibility to observe the penitential discipline
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Sources:
(1) Chapter II: Days of Penance — Code of Canon Law
(2) Fast & Abstinence — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
(3) Fasting and Abstinence: A Guideline for Catholics — Catholic Fortress
(4) What's the point of fasting, anyway? — Catholic News Agency:
(5) Why do Catholics fast and abstain? — St. Peter Parish, Covington, LA
(6) Why Do Catholics Practice Fasting and Abstinence during Lent? — Catholic Answers
