The year
Seasons and the fasts you may join
A precept is what the Church binds. A devotion is what you take up. They are not the same sentence.
No Church season is running on this date. Sunday Mass remains the precept.
The Church’s year
Precept or liturgy
lent
From Ash Wednesday to the evening of Holy Thursday’s Mass, then the Paschal fast. Fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are precepts for those who are bound. Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence.
Precept or liturgy
holy week
The Church walks behind Christ into Jerusalem, the supper, the arrest, the Cross, and the tomb. The liturgy is the devotion. Extra penance should not keep you from the services.
Precept or liturgy
easter
Fifty days. The fast is over. The Regina Caeli replaces the Angelus. The Church still expects Sunday Mass, and the Easter duty of Confession and Communion.
Precept or liturgy
advent
Four Sundays before Christmas. A season of waiting, not a second Lent, though a little quiet is its old custom.
Precept or liturgy
christmas
From the Nativity through the octave and the days to the new year. Christmas itself is a Holy Day of Obligation.
Devotions you join
Optional
Saint Michael’s Lent
From 15 August, the Assumption, to 29 September, the feast of Saint Michael. A Franciscan custom of fasting and prayer. It is not a precept. You join it; the Church does not bind you to it.