Why Isn't Ash Wednesday A Holy Day Of Obligation?

[the_rev]

I don't know if this has been asked, if it has, then provide me with a link, but Why isn't Ash Wednesday a Holy Day of Obligation.

[Adeodatus]

Holy Days of Obligation are basically taking a feastday of the Church and turning it into a "Sunday" kind of day.

The day of the Resurrection, Sunday, is the foremost holy day of obligation. We are obliged by holy mother Church to go to Mass and to abstain from "servile work" on that day, to keep the Lord's Day holy.

When other feasts are declared to be "Holy Days of Obligation", the Church is turning them into occasions of joy, celebration and solemnity. That's where we get the modern word "holiday" from, "holy day". Feasts that always fall on a Sunday anyway are not made into "holy days", e.g. Easter, Pentecost.

Ash Wednesday is a day of penitence and fasting and abstinence. You cannot fast on a Sunday, and so you can't turn Ash Wednesday into a "holy day", which would be, in effect, turning it into a Sunday-like day.