Lenten Resources

• Pope Benedict XVI's Message for Lent 2009

• Ask CUF: FAQs on the Lenten Season
• FAQs on Lenten Practices

• Lenten Traditions Within the Home (CUF Faith Fact)
  How can families better live the spirit of Lent and Easter in their homes?
• Salt Dough Recipe for Crown of Thorns and other crafts
  from the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Lay Witness

• Give It Up!
  What do "Lobstermania," "Catholic X-Games," and the "Catholic Weight Loss Plan" have to do with Lent?
  by Leon Suprenant

• Life in the Fast Lane: Why Catholics Abstain (CUF Faith Fact)
  Why do Catholics fast? What did Jesus teach about fasting? Is fasting still an obligation for Catholics?
• Lent: Discipline and History (CUF Faith Fact)
  How did Lent arise? What is its current discipline, and what is its history?
• Daily Penance, Days of Penance (CUF Faith Fact)
  What does the Church teach about daily penance? What are the days of penance, and how ought Catholics to observe them?

• Our Journey of Authentic Conversion: The Sacrament of Penance
  by Fr. Alfred McBride, O.Praem.
• Rise, and Do Not Be Afraid: Joyfully Entering Lent
  by Fr. Robert Pecotte

• Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini (1966), which governs the penitential discipline of the Church
• The National Conference of Catholic Bishops' (now the USCCB), Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence (1966), which applies that universal discipline to the United States and offers recommendations for Lent.