Guiding You Through the Church’s Liturgical Year
The Office for Divine Worship supports parishes and the archdiocese worship God through the rich and beautiful expressions of Catholic liturgy.
Our office assists the archbishop in his role as chief liturgist of the archdiocese and provides organization and support for archdiocesan liturgies.
On this page, you will find diocesan guidelines and liturgical norms, a local liturgical calendar, fasting and abstinence guidelines, guides for Catholic ceremonies and a manual for liturgical ministers.
For questions or more information, please contact our office:
Liturgical Calendar
Diocesan Guidelines
Guidelines for Receiving Holy Communion
Guidelines For Lectors And Celabration Of The Word Of God
Published: January 7, 2025
Guidelines for Parishes
Sacramental Bread and Wine Suppliers
Sacramental Bread and Wine Suppliers
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Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
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Choice Brands Wine
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Mustum Suppliers
Fasting and Abstinence
Fasting and Abstinence
Christians have long embraced fasting and self-denial as an integral part of their spiritual lives, particularly in commemoration of the Lord’s passion and death. Most of the decisions around fasting and abstinence are left to the choice of the individual believer, in consultation with his or her confessor or spiritual director.
The Catholic Church does call all believers to certain practices that emphasize the communal nature of repentance, especially during the Lenten season. These common practices include:
- Ash Wednesday and Good Friday: Traditionally, fasting consists of eating only one meal, with the possibility of two smaller snacks that do not add up to a single full meal.
- Abstinence from Meat on Fridays: Canon 1251 specifies that Catholics refrain from eating meat on Fridays, as an act of penitence. In the United States, Catholics are permitted to substitute another penance outside of the season of Lent. During Lent, however, all Catholics are obliged not to eat meat on Fridays.
- Penance during Lent: The season of Lent is a penitential time and should be marked by some form of self-denial.
- Fasting before receiving Holy Communion: In preparation for the reception of Holy Communion, Catholics are asked to observe a period of fasting before receiving the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion. The minimum length of this fast is one hour. The ill, elderly, and those who care for them are exempt from this fast.
The law of abstinence applies to all persons over the age of fourteen. The law of fasting applies to Catholics ages 18 to 59.
Those who are sick, pregnant or nursing, or whose health would be adversely affected by fasting or abstinence should not consider themselves bound by these norms.
Catholic Funeral and Burials
The Canon law of the Church states that a Catholic cemetery is a sacred place. The church provides Catholic cemeteries to carry out the sacred religious functions of burial and to care for the resting places of the faithful departed.
For more information on local cemeteries and columbaria, visit the webpage on our site.