By D.D. Emmons (OSV News)

As the penitential season of Lent begins, we Catholics, like Christians everywhere, prepare to commemorate the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just a few short weeks ago, we celebrated his birth, and now the church begins our preparation to join him on his journey to Calvary. The Church scene becomes somber, more intense, and such terms as contrition, conversion, penance, almsgiving, fasting, and abstinence dominate the liturgy.

Benedictine Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote about Lent in “The Liturgical Year” (1887): “Lent, then, is a time consecrated, in a special manner, to penance, and this penance is mainly practiced by fasting. Fasting is an abstinence, which man voluntarily imposes upon himself, as expiation for sin, and which, during Lent, is practiced in obedience to the general laws of the Church.”

HUNGER ONLY JESUS FILLS

Pope Clement XIII in 1759 said that “penance also demands that we satisfy divine justice with fasting, almsgiving, and prayer and other works of the spiritual.” The purpose of our fast is to not become physically weak or lose weight but to create a hunger, a spiritual void that only Christ can fill; in fasting from the heart, we express our love of God and acknowledge our sinfulness. Though unworthy, we pray our sacrifices will be acceptable to the one who suffered and gave his life blood for us.

Every Ash Wednesday we hear from the prophet Joel (2:12-14): “Yet even now—oracle of the Lord—return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” It is not our clothes but our hearts we need to rend in reflecting our sorrow. Our fast is not for man but for God.

Fasting and abstinence are Church-imposed penitential practices that deny us food and drink during certain seasons and on certain days. These acts of self-denial dispose us to free ourselves from worldly distractions, to express our longing for Jesus, to somehow imitate his suffering.

Abstinence traditionally has meant not eating meat and, for centuries but no longer, included meat by-products. Many may recall the calendar hanging in the kitchen that included a fish symbol on each Friday of the month. Catholics never have been compelled to eat fish on days of abstinence, but rather, to avoid meat. While abstinence refers to the kind or quality of food we eat, fasting refers to the amount or quantity of food consumed. It is contrary to the spirit of abstinence and fasting if we avoid steak but pile our plate high with fish.

In the Old Testament, God told Adam and Eve not to eat (abstain) from the Tree of Knowledge (Gn 2:17). Queen Esther (Est 4:15), in a successful attempt to save the Jews, ordered a three-day fast for herself and her court. The Book of Jonah describes how the people of Nineveh fasted and were saved from God’s wrath (3:4-10).

Jesus set the example for our fasting when he went into the desert and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights (Mt 4:1-11). His entire life involved suffering and self-denial. In Mark 2:18-20, Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ accusation that his disciples do not fast: “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.” Once Jesus was not with them, the Apostles did fast and advocated fasting to new Christians as evidenced in the books of Acts and the Epistles.

FASTING IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

By the second century, fasting was integrated into Christian worship. Jews had long fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, but the Christians chose to fast on Wednesdays, because that was the day of Christ’s betrayal, and Fridays, the day he was crucified. By the fourth century, Saturday had replaced Wednesday as a day of fasting, and over the centuries every-Saturday fasting was dropped.

Fasting before Easter was practiced in those first centuries, but the times and extent varied. Until the ninth century, fasting meant one meal a day and then only enough food to sustain life. Those keeping a fast often would give the food not eaten to others in need.

St. John wrote in 1 Jn 3:17, “If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him?” The philosopher Aristides, around the year 128, explaining how Christians lived, noted, “And if there is among them a man that is poor or needy … they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food” (Apologia, XV).

Hermes, a writer in the first and second centuries, said, “and having reckoned up the price of the dishes of that day which you intended to have eaten, you will give it to the widow or the orphan.”

Later, St. Augustine said, “What you deprive yourself by fasting, add to your almsgiving.” Today we are often encouraged to calculate the funds not spent for food during Lent and put that amount in the “poor box.”

By the Middle Ages, the number of fast days during the liturgical year had increased and at times included 70 days. Sundays and solemnities have never been days of fast. Through the mid-20th century, Catholic missals identified fasting on weekdays of Lent, ember days, the vigils of Pentecost, All Saints, Immaculate Conception, and Christmas. Abstinence was required on all Fridays, Ash Wednesday, the vigils of the Assumption and Christmas. This all would change.

In 1966, Pope St. Paul VI significantly amended the laws of fasting through his apostolic constitution “Paenitemini,” in which he affirmed some practices and gave certain authority to national conferences of bishops around the world. St. Paul VI’s changes were incorporated into the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Abstinence and fasting are required on both Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On those days, one full meal is allowed along with two other smaller meals. Catholics bound by the law of abstinence include everyone age 14 and over; the law of fasting includes individuals age 18 through the beginning of their 60th year.

Canon Law, the Catechism, precepts of the Church and the US bishops’ document, “Penitential Practices for Today’s Catholics,” explain our fasting obligations. Before Lent, most every Catholic parish emphasizes the rules and rewards of fasting and abstinence. A one-hour fast is always required before receiving Communion.

In addition to Friday abstinence during Lent, every Friday is a day of penance (Canon Law, No. 1250). According to Canon 1253, the conference of bishops in each nation may “substitute other forms of penance … for abstinence and fast.” US bishops have maintained the obligation to fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstain on the Fridays of Lent. They have granted US Catholics the option of doing another form of penance on Fridays outside Lent rather than abstaining from meat. The bishops focus us on Friday self-denial, along with works of charity and mercy while recalling Christ’s passion.©OSV NEWS

D.D. Emmons writes from Pennsylvania.

By D.D. Emmons (©OSV News)

SIGNIFICANCE OF ASH WEDNESDAY

Among the beautiful, meaningful and solemn ceremonies of the Catholic Church is the gathering of the faithful on Ash Wednesday, this year: March 5, 2025.

This special day begins our Lenten journey. It is the start of 40 days of prayer, penance, and almsgiving as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. But why does Lent begin on a Wednesday, and what is the significance of ashes?

CHRISTIAN PASSOVER

Ash Wednesday was added to the liturgical calendar well after the 40-day penitential season of Lent became the norm throughout the Latin Church. Lent, in turn, was universally-established only after the early Church sorted out the date of Easter. The issue was clarified at the famous Council of Nicaea in 325 where “all the Churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon (14 Nisan) after the vernal equinox” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], No. 1170). The vernal (spring) equinox generally falls on March 21, thus the date of Easter in the Western Church can occur anytime between March 22 and April 25.

The word “Lent” is from an Old English term meaning “springtime,” and by the second century the term was being used to describe the period of individual fasting, almsgiving, and prayer in preparation for Easter. Among the Christians of the first three centuries, only those aspiring for baptism—the catechumens—observed a defined period of preparation, and that time lasted only two or three days.

The idea of Lent being 40 days in length evolved over the next few centuries, and it is difficult to establish the precise time as to when it began. Among the canons issued by the Council of Nicaea, the Church leaders, in Canon Five, made reference to Lent: “and let these synods be held, the one before Lent that the pure gift may be offered to God after all bitterness has been put away, and let the second be held about autumn.” The language of this canon seems to validate that Lent, in some fashion, had by the fourth century been established and accepted by the Church. While the exact timing and extent of Lent both before and after the Nicaea council is unclear, what is clear from historical documents is that Christians did celebrate a season of Lent to prepare themselves for Resurrection Sunday and used a variety of ways to do so.

WHY 40 DAYS?

That Lent evolved into a period of 40 days in length is not surprising, as there are numerous biblical events that also involved 40 days. Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instructions from God for that number of days (see Ex 24:18); Noah and his entourage were on the Ark waiting for the rains to end for 40 days and 40 nights (Gn 7:4); and Elijah “walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb” (1 Kgs 19:8).

Mostly, though, the 40 days of Lent identify with the time our Lord Jesus spent in the desert fasting, praying and being tempted by the devil (Mt 4:1-11). “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (Catechism, No. 540).

There is, therefore, evidence that by the end of the fourth century, Christians were participating in a 40-day Lent before Easter. The dilemma now became how to count the 40 days. In the Latin Church, six weeks were used to identify the Lenten period, but one doesn’t fast on Sundays, so six Sundays were subtracted and there remained only 36 fasting days. In the early seventh century, St. Pope Gregory I the Great (pope from 590-604) resolved this situation by adding as fast days the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before the first Sunday of Lent. Thus the Lenten 40-day fast, or the Great Fast as it was known, would begin on a Wednesday.

Initially, people fasted all 40 days of Lent. They ate one meal a day and only an amount of food that would sustain survival. But the Church taught, and people believed (then as now), that fasting is not about what we eat, it is about changing hearts, interior conversion, reconciliation with God and others. It’s about living in an austere way, giving from our abundance to the poor. St. John Chrysostom (347-407) explained it this way: “Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works! … If you see a poor man, take pity on him! If you see an enemy, be reconciled to him! If you see a friend gaining honour, envy him not! If you see a handsome woman, pass her by!” (Homily on the Statutes, III.11).

The Church has long used ashes as an outward sign of grief, a mark of humility, mourning, penance, and mortality. The Old Testament is filled with stories describing the use of ashes in such a manner. In the Book of Job, Job repented before God: “Therefore, I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). Daniel “turned to the Lord God, to seek help, in prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Dn 9:3). Jonah preached conversion and repentance to the people of Nineveh: “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes” (Jon 3:6). And the Maccabees army prepared for battle: “That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their garments” (1 Mc 3:47).

Ashes were imposed on the early catechumens when they began their preparation time for baptism. Confessed sinners of that era were also marked with ashes as part of the public penitential process. Other baptized Christians began asking to receive ashes in a manner similar to catechumens and penitents. Christian men had ashes sprinkled on their heads while ashes were used to trace the cross on the forehead of women. Thus the use of ashes as the sign of penance, in readiness for Easter, was becoming a Church-wide practice.

During the papacy of St. Gregory the Great, the practice was further expanded and is mentioned in the sixth-century Gregorian Sacramentary. Around the year 1000, Abbot Aelfric of the monastery of Eynsham, England, wrote: “We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the new that men who repented of their sins bestowed on themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads, to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten feast.” This same rite of distributing ashes on the Wednesday that begins Lent was recommended for universal use by Pope Urban II at the Synod of Benevento in 1091.

So when we go to that early Mass on Ash Wednesday morning and receive the blessed ashes on our forehead, we are repeating a somber, pious act that Catholics have been undergoing for over 1,500 years. As “The Liturgical Year, Septuagesima,” by the Benedictine Abbot Gueranger, written in the middle decades of the 1800s, puts it: “We are entering, today, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoke of by the apostles: 40 days of battle, 40 days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our souls can but be impressed with the conviction that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which opens our Lent. Let us go whither our mother leads us, that is, to the scene of the fall.”

Like all those before us, we unhesitatingly embrace this invitation to sanctity, this time to turn away from sin. We are part of that great cloud of witnesses who through all the ages have donned the ashes, publicly acknowledging that we are Christians, Christians who have sinned and seek to repent. We acknowledge that “we are dust and to dust we shall return.”©OSV News

D.D. Emmons writes from Pennsylvania.