Holy Week Fasting, and Easter Feasting, by Alexandra Greeley

By Alexandra Greeley, Catholic Exchange, April 12, 2022

A convert to Catholicism, Alexandra Greeley is a food writer, restaurant critic, and cookbook author, who is passionate about every aspect of the food world — from interviewing chefs to supporting local farmers and to making the connection between food and faith. Her latest work is Cooking with the Saints.

Holy Week—feast or fast? Both. For Catholics, fasting means maintaining Lenten obligation to enjoy one normal meal a day. Fasting becomes more rigorous after the special Maundy Thursday dinner—the Last Supper—which for some replicates Christ’s last meal. That would be a Seder meal with wine, unleavened bread, and a lamb shank, plus other offerings. This feast also commemorates Christ’s institution of the Holy Eucharist.

From Good Friday to Easter Sunday—the Triduum—fasting helps encourage hunger of the body and hunger of the spirit for redemption. But Easter Sunday is a special day in the Christian calendar when all celebrate the risen Christ after His crucifixion. Thus, Easter has become a day of feasting and socializing after attending Mass. …