Lent
Well, it’s Lent again already. The six-and-a-half week long prelude to Easter. Yes, Easter candy has probably been available since February 15th, but the Lenten season doesn’t officially start until Ash Wednesday. And that’s today.
I was raised Catholic. And unlike most of my friends and acquaintances, I still believe in God and (most of) the stuff that I was taught in my youth.
Ash Wednesday
The words ‘Ash Wednesday’ bring thoughts of fasting and abstaining from meat. Thoughts of the priest making the sign of the cross on your forehead with ashes. But for me, it mainly brings back thoughts of getting up before the crack of dawn to make it to church on time to help serve mass.
I was an altar boy. (One of the seemingly rare non-molested ones.) And at the time that I was an altar boy, I thought there was a better than average chance that I would eventually become a priest. This was back when I thought that being a priest would afford me lots of spare time in which to write novels. And before I knew how much education becoming a priest required.
Religious vs. Spiritual
A (hopefully) brief aside – I actually had an appointment with my therapist in the middle of writing this post. (Video appointment, due to Covid.) I mentioned that I was writing a blog post about Lent, which kind of redirected our conversation.
We talked a bit about religion vs. spirituality. He refers to himself as a recovering Catholic, and says that religion is about rules, whereas spirituality is about connection with a higher power (God, or who/whatever works for you). Religion is about infractions (drink a cup of coffee and you go to Hell) whereas spirituality is about whether or not you’ve tried to be a good person.
I was a lot more religious when I was younger than I am now. As I said, I still believe in God. I still pray every night before bedtime. (Some of those prayers are a little weird, having been custom written by me, but I believe that prayer is prayer, and God doesn’t mind.)
The last two times I’ve been to church was a baptism and a funeral. Do I feel a little guilty about that? Maybe a little. But overall I feel closer to God now than I did way (way, way) back when I was attending church every Sunday. Does that make me a more spiritual person now? Who knows?
40 Days and 40 Nights
The season of Lent is six and a half weeks, or 46 days. Lent itself is 40 days long. (Well, 40 days and 40 nights, officially.) The reason for the discrepancy is that Sundays don’t count as part of Lent.
Sundays in Lent are like mini vacations from the observance. (Did you give up tacos for Lent? Then welcome to Taco Sunday!)
Some people think that pressing ‘pause’ your observance of Lent on Sundays is cheating. I remember that when I was a kid I absolutely lived for Sundays in Lent. A respite from sacrifice? Yes, please!
Nowadays I find myself leaning more towards the belief that it’s a cheat. But I’m not the arbiter of Lent, so do what you want.
Chocolate Bunny and Fish Stick Season
A couple of posts ago I was talking about my stuffed walrus, Cyrus. I mentioned that Lent is one of his three favorite holidays because it’s chocolate bunny and fish stick season. Cyrus isn’t one to abstain, fast, or sacrifice, but he does love his chocolate bunnies and fish sticks.
I do, too. Chocolate bunnies are delicious, as are Whopper brand Robin Eggs, and jelly beans.
And I know that a lot of Catholics can’t stand fish sticks as adults because of their childhood fish stick meals during Fridays in Lent, but I still enjoy them. (As long as they’re quality fish sticks, that is. My preferred brand is Gorton’s. And they have to be crunchy. Soggy, floppy fish sticks are inedible fish sticks.)
I Gave It Up For Lent
One of the key components of Lent is giving stuff up for the season. The sacrifice of certain luxuries.
Over the years, I think I’ve given up pretty much everything at one time or another. As a child, it was standard to give up candy. But I never gave up just candy.
I’d give up comic books. One year I gave up reading entirely. (That was excruciatingly hard.)
I gave up television, which was hard living in a house with Dad, who would have preferred that the television had no off switch.
I gave up listening to music once. Back when I was journaling constantly, I gave up writing one year. And giving up video games is a long running yearly sacrifice.
I Tried To Give It Up For Lent, But…
I’m usually pretty good with sticking to the whole ‘giving things up for Lent’ bit, but… there are some exceptions. Sometimes I find that the temptation is too much and I give in. I need to be aware of my limitations going into Lent.
Last year, for example, I tried to give up foods containing ‘obvious’ sugar, like a good little diabetic. No candy, no cookies, no pastry, no ice cream, etc. I failed in my efforts, because I’m weak and chocolate is both tasty and addicting. (And orderable from Amazon.com when you’re up way too late at night.)
I’ve also tried on multiple occasions to give up masturbation for Lent. And that has never worked out for me. [TMI? Sorry.] I now know better than to even try.
It’s Between You and God
When I was in the second grade, I would go next door to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house several times a week, and Grandpa and I would have ice cream. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.
One day as Lent was approaching, my religion teacher asked me what I was planning on giving up for Lent. I told her that I was thinking about giving up chocolate syrup on my ice cream. Which is when she informed me that I couldn’t do that. I had to give up ice cream altogether, or it wouldn’t count.
Huh? What the fuck, lady?! (Probably with less salty language, as I was only in second grade at the time.) I wasn’t willing to give up ice cream because, in my mind, that would mean less time spent with Grandpa.
Grandpa was religious. Devout. Prayed the holy rosary three times a day, went to church every Sunday. So I took my dilemma to him. He told me that what I gave up for Lent was between me and God and nobody else. And that if I wanted to give up chocolate syrup, then I should give up chocolate syrup.
I didn’t take that information back to my religion teacher, because frankly the lady sometimes scared me. But I gave up chocolate syrup that Lent, and felt good about it.
This Year’s Lenten Activity
So what am I doing for Lent this year?
Well, I can’t give up LEGO, because the next convention is a week away, and I’m still building MOCs for it.
I’m not giving up foods with obvious sugar in them because I still don’t think I can pull that off. Plus, there are certain days that fall within Lent that I know I’m going to be eating junk, and I doubt that, “I’m giving up foods with obvious sugar except for the four days of the LEGO convention and that one day in early April” would cut it.
Can’t really give up sex when I’m not having any to begin with.
Not going to give up TV because that would be just too easy. (I’m not really watching TV right now.)
Not going to give up reading because that would probably also be easy these days. (I tend to read in cycles. A few weeks of reading, a few months of not reading.)
I’ll give up video games again. Computer solitaire is my go-to time waster, and I’ve developed an on-again/off-again relationship with Minecraft.
But I think that the luxury I’d most miss if I gave it up would be home-delivered food. No UberEats. No GrubHub. No DoorDash. So that’s what I’ll do.
An often overlooked part of Lent is adding something to your life instead of (or in addition to) taking something away. Doing charity work, or going to church every day. Things like that.
So, in addition to giving up UberEats (et al), I’m also going to start praying the holy rosary, something I haven’t done in probably fifteen years. My rosary – the one I was given as a gift for my first communion – is most likely still in my brother’s basement somewhere. Because of this, I’ve ordered myself a new one off of Amazon.
My original rosary was made by a craftswoman and blessed by a priest. My new one comes from Amazon. I’m hoping the Virgin Mary won’t mind.
Comments
Post a Comment