46 Days?

We often think of Lent as being 40 days long, but if you were to count the days from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, you arrive at 46 days instead… What's that about?

Well, it is more accurate to say there are 40 days of fasting in Lent rather than there are 40 days of Lent, as while the Sundays of Lent are certainly and obviously part of Lent, they are not days we are prescribed to fast. If we remove the Sundays from the count between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday, we end up at 40 days, down from 46.

So why don’t Sundays “count”? It comes down to differentiating when and why the Church asks us to fast, and when and why it asks us to feast. On days throughout the year that hold the rank of Feast or Solemnity, we are invited to put aside our fasting, penitence, and sorrow to rejoice with Holy Church in the triumph of Christ and His Saints. On certain days throughout the year, especially Fridays (not just in Lent) and all days of Lent, Holy Church invites us to participate in the sorrow of Christ on the cross and practice a form of penance or fasting in sorrow for our sins, which were laid upon the cross. Catholic peoples from time immemorial have set apart Friday for special penitential observance by which they gladly suffer with Christ that they may one day be glorified with Him.

In the Code of Canon Law, #1249-1250 states, “The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence… The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.”

In the United States, this law is clarified by the USCCB (as allowed for in Canon 1253) to stipulate that fasting from meat is required for Fridays of Lent, while other Fridays throughout the year this can be substituted with some other voluntary self-denial and personal penance such as giving up something else we enjoy, or giving up our time to perform acts of service.

All that said, the things we give up during the entirety of Lent, while we are not obliged to fast from them on days of feasting, these practices are disciplinary in nature and often more effective if they are continuous, i.e., kept on Sundays as well. However, this practice is not regulated by the Church, but by individual conscience. A fun fact: if you include the Feast of St. Joseph and the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, both of which hold the rank of Solemnity, there would be 38 days of fasting for this year’s Lent.