From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
April 25, 2026 (#92)
The Gift of Communal Penance
Now that Lent has passed, most Catholics might think very little about fasting and abstinence. In 2011, the bishops of England and Wales reinstated the obligation for Catholics to practice abstinence from meat on every Friday of the year. But in the United States, the bishops have not indicated much interest in restoring that discipline. Of course, any individual is free to embrace that tradition as a personal penitential practice, but it is different from a communal commitment by the members of the Church who constitute the Body of Christ, to do the same. Humanly speaking, many of us need that extra push to do that which we know we should do. And, furthermore, doing it together offers a “soft” public witness which in turn helps us to do it.
It remains the purview of the bishops’ conference of each nation or region to establish the discipline traditionally associated with days of communal penance. For centuries, several other days throughout the year were so designated, besides Fridays. April 25 (the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist) was one of those days. It was long designated as the day of “Major Rogation,” and in celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass, even now, the day is marked by the chanting of the Litany of the Saints. (“Rogation” comes from a Latin word, rogare, meaning, “to ask”). In some communities, the observance of the day, in addition to fasting and abstinence, has included processions around parishes and agricultural fields. “Minor Rogation” days were/are observed on the three days prior to Ascension Thursday. In observing these days, local communities, that is, members of the Body of Christ, corporately implore(d) God for mercy and forgiveness, protection from calamities, and for His blessing on agriculture. Such prayers and fasting, it can be convincingly argued, help(ed) to create community and a culture of Catholic faith.
For centuries, in addition to Rogation Days, Ember Days were, and in some places still are (not in the USA), another aspect of communal devotion and penance for Catholics. Four sets of three days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) are so designated, thus adding 12 more days of communal penance each year to the Church's calendar. The traditional dates for these multiple-day observances correspond to the seasons of the year: the weeks after the first Sunday of Lent (moveable date), Pentecost (moveable date), the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), and the feast of Saint Lucy (December 14). In addition to the penitential observances of these days, their periodic scheduling fostered a Catholic identity and practice anchored in the liturgical cycle of the Church. Would it serve the Church to reinstate some or all of these practices for the benefit of the faithful?
