Junior Andre Nguyen hands a pretzel to senior Henry Creel during lunch on Friday. Creel was one of hundreds of Blue Jays who vowed to eat only the soft bread and water for lunch as part of their Lenten sacrifice. This was the second year Campus Ministry hosted the Pretzel Fast. For centuries, many Catholics have seen pretzels as a symbolic reminder of Lenten prayer, sacrifice, and fasting. According to pretzel maker Snyder’s of Hanover, in the early 7th century a young Italian monk was preparing a special Lenten bread made of water, flour and salt. To remind his brother monks that Lent was a time of prayer, he rolled the bread dough in strips and then shaped each strip in the form of crossed arms, mimicking the then-popular prayer position of folding one’s arms over each other across the chest.