Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.
Since 1884, proceeds from the Black and Indian Missions Collection (BIM) are distributed as grants to dioceses supporting and strengthening evangelization programs, which would otherwise be in danger of disappearing among the Black, American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleute communities of the United States.
The Catholic Relief Services collection benefits six Church-related entities that all offer aid to the vulnerable in carrying out the Christ’s mandate in Matthew’s Gospel to care for the “least of these.”