It was Ash Wednesday few days ago which marked the season of Lent. Lent is a 40-day period of preparation for Easter Sunday which will fall on April 24th. This season marked by prayer, fasting and abstinence and almsgiving.
When we, Catholics, talk about fasting, we normally mean restricting the food that we eat which is primarily a spiritual discipline designed to tame the body so that we can concentrate on higher things.
Fasting and abstinence are closely related but, there are some differences in these spiritual practices. When Catholics talk about fasting, we normally mean restricting the quantity of food that we eat. Abstinence refers to the avoidance of particular foods. The most common form of abstinence is the avoidance of meat, a spiritual practice that goes back to the earliest days of the Church.
I had been practicing Friday abstinence in the past but, it gradually worn off ever since I was an undergraduate. As for this year, I want to do something different. I had never done this before but for my own spiritual discipline, I would like to abstain from doing different things each week.
As a start, I will abstain myself from Facebook for a week.
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