Lenten obligations

Lent began on Ash Wednesday, February 21, 2007.

The Church asks all Catholics to observe the following penitential acts:

- Abstinence (not eating meat) obliges Catholics who are 14 years of age and older.

- Fasting (one full meal and two smaller ones with nothing in between) obliges those between 18 and 60 years of age. Liquids between meals are allowed.

- Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fast and abstinence. Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence.

- Grave inconvenience or sickness excuses persons from observing the laws of fast and abstinence. In such cases, they are urged to practice other forms of self-denial appropriate to their condition.