2. Prayer

Prayer is talking with God in order to get to know him, to love him and to do his will.  Our rule of life should include saying our morning and evening prayers every day, and saying Grace at meals.

3. Acts of discipline

Fasting and abstinence

The Church has traditionally had days of fasting and abstinence.  Fasting actually means going without food, but a fast day is not one on which we eat nothing at all.  It is one on which we have one proper meal, and only a little to eat in the rest of the day.  Days of fasting are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Children and older people are not expected to fast.

Days of abstinence are days when we abstain or go without meat, that is, the meat of animals or birds.  Fish may be eaten instead.  Ash Wednesday is a day of abstinence and Fridays are kept as days of abstinence, except when Christmas Day falls on a Friday.  Friday is a day of abstinence because that was the day of Jesus’ Crucifixion.  The purpose of fasting and abstinence is to show our love for Jesus by going without something for his sake, and also to keep ourselves from being ruled by our bodies

Recently there has been more emphasis in the Church on other forms of personal discipline and self-denial.  And this makes sense, because replacing an ordinary meat dish with a very special meal of fish would not be in the spirit of abstinence.

Days of discipline and self-denial

In Common Worship days of discipline and self-denial are the weekdays of Lent and all the Fridays in the year, except all Principal Feasts and Festivals outside Lent, and also the Fridays between Easter Day and Pentecost.  It is also appropriate to keep the days before Principal Feasts as days of discipline and self-denial in preparation for the Feast. (2) We shall come back to self-denial a little later in this course when we think about keeping Lent.