Penance

The reason we abstain from meat (mammal or fowl) is because it is an act of penance observed universally.  What else can you do to do penance for your sins and those of the whole world?  Read on here.

Want to know what the Church teaches about Penance, you can start at paragraph 1434  in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and work your way through to 1440.  The link takes you too an online CCC.  It can be searched by word or theme.  Try it out.

Oh, yeah, and St Thomas' Lenten Penance Service is Tuesday, March 31st at 7:00 pm. 

And, I leave you with paragraph 540 from CCC: Jesus' temptation reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes to him and the way men wish to attribute to him. This is why Christ vanquished the Tempter for us: "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning." By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.