Lent 2024

Lent is the season of grace in which the desert can become once more – in the words of the prophet Hosea – the place of our first love (cf. Hos 2:16-17). God shapes his people, he enables us to leave our slavery behind and experience a Passover from death to life. Like a bridegroom, the Lord draws us once more to himself, whispering words of love to our hearts.

The National Eucharistic Revival has published Holy Week Eucharistic Prayer Companions! These beautiful prayer guides will help you keep prayer at the center of your Lenten practices this year by guiding you in connecting an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament with the Mass.

Hallow, the Catholic prayer and meditation app, is partnering with Immaculate Conception this Lent, offering a special $1 subscription to new users through Easter, and a 20% discount on the annual subscription after that. Visit hallow.com/holyday to redeem. We invite all parishioners interested in journeying through their Pray40 Lenten Challenge, to join us in the app. The Pray40 Challenge will focus on the book He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek with audio guides Jonathan Roumie, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Sister Miriam James, Mark Wahlberg, and more. The Pray40 Challenge will focus on the book He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek with audio guides Jonathan Roumie, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Sister Miriam James, Mark Wahlberg, and more.

Once you are on the app, be sure to find Immaculate Conception DC in the new Community Tab feature at the bottom of your screen, and join the parish “group” so we can pray for one another. Click here to join the group: https://hallow.app.link/8oA63zSRoHb. Or join using this code in the app: 976LL1

Email parishioner Erin Lenssen at erin@hallow.app with questions.

FORMED brings beautiful and faithful Catholic content to parishes, families, and individuals. There is something for everyone here: award-winning studies and parish programs, inspiring audio content, movies, e-books, and family-friendly kids’ programming. Led by the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press, and in collaboration with over 100 content providers, this site reaches more than one million subscribers worldwide.

Explore their Lenten content for adults and children!

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory daysf abstinence.

For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.

Members of the Eastern Catholic Churches are to observe the particular law of their own sui iuris Church.

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.