Church's Teaching About Sundays Of Lent

[RemnantRules]

Blessed Be God!!!

I need some help, and I'm sure this has been asked before, and if it has please show me where I can find it.

I know the whole teaching about how on Sunday's during Lent you are not suppose to Fast b/c it's considered a Feast Day. I know you're not suppose to go and seek out what you gave up and gorge yourself, BUT you are not suppose to run and hide from it. The Sundays are also not part of the 40 days.

HOWEVER, where in writing from the Church teaching does it say that offically? My youth were asking and I want to get them an answer soon.

Help please, and THANK YOU!

God Bless
Jason Gregory

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Jason, I can't give you any authoritative documents on the matter because I'm not aware of any. The tradition was always that Sundays were a "Little Easter" and the 40 days of Lent don't include Sundays. This has been universally recognized for many centuries, but I'm not sure if anyone's ever bothered to write it down in an authoritative way.

The Lenten Fast developed specifically as a way for the whole Church to share in the preparation for Baptism for those in the Catechumenate. Because of that, it seems to have developed in different ways in different places.

The Catholic Encyclopedia seems to have a history of Lent providing proof of the development of the Sunday issue. It seems that it didn't used to be 6 straight weeks of fasting (of course, their fasting was more severe than ours), but 3 weeks total, not including Sundays or even Saturdays: [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09152a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09152a.htm[/url] (look under the section "Duration of the Fast").

God bless,

Micah

[Thy Geekdom Come]

By the way, that Catholic Encyclopedia article really struck an interest in me. I encourage anyone reading this to do some research. I think it would be great to have an article addressing this topic on PM.