Valentine’s Day = Ash Wednesday: This year, Ash Wednesday happens to fall on Valentine's Day. Ash Wednesday is not a day of chocolates and wine but rather a day of fasting and abstinence.
Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ's will more faithfully. We recall the waters of baptism in which we were also baptized into Christ's death, died to sin and evil, and began a new life in Christ.
On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we should not only abstain from all meat but also fast by limiting ourselves to one meal for the entire day. However, on the morning and evening of these two days, some exceptions may apply, as Pope Paul VI notes: “The law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening, observing—as far as quantity and quality are concerned.”
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