Unlike a Friday in Lent, when a dispensation is sometimes given from fast and abstinence on St. Patrick’s Day, Ash Wednesday is a more solemn and universal day of prayer and penance for Catholics and many other Christians as well. So there is no dispensation from fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday, February 14, in the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Catholics may wish to anticipate the Feast of St. Valentine on the day before, on February 13.
– Archbishop Leonard P. Blair
