February 15, 2026

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, There are just a few days to go until Lent! Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday, February the 18th. Our Masses for the day will be at 6am (bilingual), 9am (English), 5pm (English), and 7pm (bilingual). We will be doing Mass both in the main church and the parish hall at 7pm, to make sure we can accommodate everyone. Please be sure to take a look at our Lenten program flyers in the bulletin this week (and available in the gathering space throughout Lent). For this week, I’d like to provide a brief run-down on the way the Church’s disciplines of fasting and abstinence work. The details of how this works can be a bit confusing, so it will hopefully be helpful to go over them a bit. First, fasting. There are two days every Lent where all Catholics from the ages of 18 to 59 are required to fast (if you’re medically able): Ash Wednesday (February 18) and Good Friday (April 3). In canon law, this is defined as only taking a single full meal at some point during the day. We’re also allowed two light snacks throughout the day, but the total amount eaten shouldn’t add up to a full meal. For example, you might eat a normal lunch, but keep breakfast to a banana and have an evening snack of a granola bar. A lot of people like to completely fast on those days (by not eating anything), but that’s not required. There’s nothing wrong with needing to keep your blood sugar and energy levels up enough to be able to focus on work or school. And be sure to drink plenty of water when fasting—water isn’t covered by the fasting rules. Coffee or tea without any milk or sugar are considered the same as water for the purposes of the fast. Second, abstinence. When talking about Lent, what this means is that all Catholics who are at least 14 years old are asked to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all Fridays during Lent. This means no beef, pork, chicken, or other animal meats. That said, the Church doesn’t require us to go completely vegan on those days: things like eggs, milk, and butter are OK. That said, I would recommend following the spirit of the fast and trying to keep things simple on days of abstinence. In our modern world, these kinds of rules can seem old-fashioned, but I think there’s a lot we can learn by not just following them begrudgingly but rather embracing them. Everyone who becomes a saint starts somewhere, and walking the Lenten journey by sharing some of the basic disciplines with our brothers and sisters is a well-traveled path. Through the prayers of Our Lady and St. Thomas, let’s ask God to help us embrace the spirit of this season of the Cross, so that together we will come to the joys of the Resurrection. God bless,

Father Jantz