Guidelines for the Lenten Season

During the season of Lent we joyfully prepare to celebrate the paschal feast with minds and hearts renewed. In Lent the community of faith is blessed with a spirit of loving reverence for God and of willing service to neighbor. Our observance of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18, and continues through the afternoon of Holy Thursday, April 2. On Ash Wednesday, the imposition of ashes replicates biblical penitential practice and symbolizes our dependence of God’s mercy and forgiveness. During Lent, the faithful are called to renew our baptismal commitment, while catechumens prepare to be baptized through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

The three traditional pillars of Lenten observance, taken from the Gospel according to Matthew are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We are asked to surrender ourselves to prayer and reflection on God’s Word, to fast and abstain from unnecessary indulgences, and to promote a more just and peaceful world. The penance that all of us do on Fridays is a reminder of the daily Lenten discipline of individuals and households around the world: fasting for certain periods of time, abstaining from certain foods, fasting from other distractions and activities, opening up to God and neighbor. Likewise, the giving of alms is a sign of a renewed commitment to Catholic social teaching: supporting the rights of all people to adequate food, shelter, and health care.

The key to a fruitful observance of these practices is to recognize their link to our continuing conversion and baptismal renewal. We are called not just to abstinence from sin during Lent but more to true conversion of our hearts and minds as

followers of Christ. We recall those waters in which we were baptized into Christ’s death, died to sin and evil, and began new life in Christ.

• Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of obligatory fast and abstinence. Fridays in Lent are days of obligatory abstinence.
• Abstaining from the meat of warm-blooded animals, eg, beef, chicken, pork, is obligatory for all Catholics who have reached their 14th year.
• Fasting from unnecessary food is obligatory for all Catholics who have completed their 18th year and have not yet reached their 60th year. Fasting allows a person to eat one full meal a day. Two smaller meals may be taken, not to equal one full meal.
• Fast and abstinence are serious obligations and are laudable practices even when not required. No one, however, is obliged or encouraged to fast or abstain if doing so would endanger one’s health or cause unreasonable hardship.
• Our parish’s Lenten alms will once again support Catholic Relief Services through our participation in Operation Rice Bowl. Individual parishioners may also assist other agencies in promoting justice and charity.

In their prayer, fasting and almsgiving, good Catholics, whatever their circumstances, try to observe the spirit of Lent the best they can.

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© 2014 St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church. All rights reserved.

ST. ALOYSIUS CATHOLIC CHURCH

1234 Washington Boulevard

Detroit, Michigan 48226

313.237.5810

Fr. Loren Thomas Connell, OFM, Pastor