In reply to Mary Carr.

I don't think He cares about a lot of stuff going on down here, but the point of the Church is to focus ourselves on heaven. It's easy to write off any practice that doesn't seem applicable. Does God care what color vestments we use? Or the exact wording of the Mass? Probably not, but those practices are designed to help focus and push us to heaven.

Among other things, penance practices help protect us from being too self-centered. We're having to do something hard, something that hurts a little, to remind us that 1. Jesus did a really hard thing for us, but 2. Others in this world do not have what we have. We give up a bit of meat and recall that so many in the world eat exclusively rice and beans every day.

Does it matter if we use broth or not? Not really, no, but as we let some of these practices slide into abeyance, the loss of the actual practice may not be matter, but what else does that impact? How is it impacting the construct of our popular devotion, which is how we live our day-to-day? If our day-to-day is further and further from practices that drive us toward Christ, it is easier to fall away from that drive.

Is this the only way to do that? Of course not. Does it mean it doesn't matter? Eh.