Symbolically speaking...

True prayer, charity, and fasting have God’s command: and where they do, it is a sin to omit them. But where they are not commanded by God’s law but have a set form derived from human tradition, such works belong to the human traditions of which Christ says (Matt. 15:9), “In vain do they worship me with the precepts of men.” Thus certain fasts were instituted not to control the flesh but, as Scotus says, to pay homage to God and to compensate for eternal death. The same holds when a fixed number of prayers or certain acts of charity are performed as acts of worship which ex opere operato pay homage to God and compensate for eternal death. They attribute satisfaction to the mere performance of these acts, for they teach that they avail even for those in mortal sin. Ap XII:143