More on Fasting, and on Ashes

I was recently introduced to The Pillar which is an excellent source of Catholic news and ideas. This week’s digest from them is relevant to the beginning of Lent with posts about fasting and abstinence and also about the really rather obscure origins of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. I will let The Pillar introduce its two articles with their links:

Of course, we Catholics also tend to be good at getting a little obsessive about the details and the rules. So, on Ash Wednesday, we published a primer on fasting and abstinence, to help you keep clear on what’s expected, what’s suggested, and what the rules are.

As is customary at the beginning of Lent, some people have been asking about the mystery of ash smudging vs. ash sprinkling: If you want to know what that’s all about, we looked into it for Lent last year.