LENT: a period of 40 days (excluding Sundays) of preparation for Easter. Recalling Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness prior to his public ministry, Lent provides a time of spiritual discipline and growth for Christians by encouraging conversion through prayer, fasting and good deeds.
FASTING: partaking of only one full meal and two smaller meals not equaling the main meal.
ABSTINENCE: the voluntary self-denial of meat or of foods prepared with meat on those days prescribed by the Church as penitential (Ash Wednesday, all Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday).
PENANCE or PENITENCE: the spiritual change (conversion of mind and heart) by which one turns away from sin, and all that it implies, toward God, through personal renewal guided by the Holy Spirit. It involves sorrow and contrition for sin, together with other internal and external acts of amendment.
EASTER DUTY: the serious obligation binding Roman Catholics to receive the Eucharist sometime during the Easter
season (in the U.S., from the first Sunday of Lent to and including Trinity Sunday, 10 days after Ascension Thursday).