On this Ash Wednesday, let’s take a page from up-and-coming Catholic streamer Pinesap. Over on X, he shares the basic fasting requirements and suggests additional ways to grow in holiness these 40 days by dialing up your Lenten difficulty settings:
Fasting Rules for Lent all Catholics are obligated to observe:
1. On Ash Wednesday (2/14) and Good Friday (3/29), you can only eat one full meal and two smaller meals that do not add up to a full meal
2. No Meat on all Fridays of Lent, including Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
3. If possible, the fast on Good Friday is continued until the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday night) as the “paschal fast” to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus and to prepare ourselves to share more fully and to celebrate more readily his Resurrection.
As noted above, observing the above mortifications is the bare minimum. You can add the following measures to do Lent on hard mode …
Suggested observances that can help improve your Lent:
1. Fasting from Social media
2. Black Fasts (no food) on all Fridays, as well as Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
3. Sleeping on the floor
4. No meat, dairy, eggs, or animal fats
5. No relaxing Lenten practices on Sunday
6. Limiting electronics or TV
7. Giving up hobbies such as video games, digital entertainment, or any other equivalent activity
8. No sugar, including sweet drinks
9. No drinks besides water
Try upping your Lenten difficulty settings this year, while maintaining or increasing your daily prayer, and see how much progress you make conquering besetting vices while growing closer to Our Lord.
Bonus suggestion: Reducing earthly pleasures does wonders for breaking undue attachments and increasing intimacy with God. But Lent isn’t just about what you give up. Try adding a new prayer or devotion, like saying one additional rosary, practicing Lectio Divina, or spending 15 minutes in mental prayer each day.
Remember, Lent is boot camp for the Church militant. God wants to give you all the graces you need to conquer the Enemy who wants to despoil your soul. But God also wants us to cooperate with His grace, so show him you’re serious. Turn up your Lenten difficulty setting at least one notch this year.
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The Catholic approach: “This is the bare minimum. Dial it up as you see fit.”
The Orthodox approach: “Our fasting rule requires you to jump into the deep end. Negotiate with your spiritual father if you would rather begin in the shallows.”
Then there’s the fasting requirements of the Eastern Catholic rites …
This is something the Protestant traditions have largely lost, or trivialized, alas. I’m not sure which is worse, honestly: ignoring these seasons of preparation completely, or reducing them to ‘giving up chocolate for Lent’ absent some deeper, lasting growth in holiness and Christlikeness. Our general allergy to consciously employing Tradition as source and norm is a weakness, to be sure. I’d go so far as to attribute it to spiritual pride.
If I may make a suggestion:
Keep the Ember Days of Lent. Two days of fasting together can a challenging, but perhaps they are also a chance to practice for fasting through the Great Vigil. Pray for new vocations to the priesthood and pastoral ministry more generally. Pray for those discerning vocations.
Excellent suggestion, brother.
That’s a solid list. At first glance it looks like Nightmare difficulty, but on further inspection I’ve worked up to most of it over the last 5-6 years. I’ll never manage 4 for health reasons, and 3 would be bad for my marriage, but the rest? Done, doing, or doable. Not meaning to boast and all glory to the Almighty, of course: most of these were at least aided by necessity of some form.
Fasting and prayer are two of the most effective tools we have in this life (for some value of tool, no blasphemy intended), so thank you for your reminder to keep up the second part of that equation.