Lent Day 16: Less Saintly

From this morning’s readings:

Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
But stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.

Ho yeah, we’ve got that here. Two weeks into Lent-o-rama it is. Cat Hodge writes about the second-week lull here, and Scott Reeves writes about it here.

Ashes have worn off, can’t remember where my sackcloth got to, and I’m now in that phase of Lent where even ordinary-time decent behavior seems to have scooted off and left Wretched Sinner to reign.

Lent will do this to you. There’s nothing like trying to be a better person to make it clear how much worse things are than you’d been lulled into believing.

I am fortunate because, by complete accident of state-of-life and no smart planning ahead on my part, I picked an intermittent personal penance. You know the type — get to Adoration once a week, or say a Chaplet on Fridays, or some extra odd or end that you couldn’t do every day if you wanted to, because your life is like that, but which you could manage once a week or on certain days.

Serendipitous help: When that day of the week comes around, you’ve got a built-in ‘reset’ button. If you’ve fallen into Apathetic Christian Mode, the ridiculousness of performing some superlative act when you can’t even hold together normal Christian life will, perhaps, slap a little remorse and repentance into you.

Lenten Implosion Syndrome is not a bug, it’s a feature. Lent prepares us for Easter, and Easter is not the day when we saved ourselves.

Photo by Diego Delso, of course. Guessed that as soon as I saw it on Image of the Day. [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons. Click through and scroll down for the brief but enlightening description + implicit exhortation.

Introducing Vincent Weaver

Note from Jen: I’ve invited my friend and colleague Vincent Weaver to share his thoughts on this blog. I kept urging him to start his own blog, but he had the sense not to do that, so I decided to lure him into the vice slowly and gently. Today he introduces himself, and in the future just watch the byline. If you enjoy his work, please let him know over at the blog discussion group.

***

Greetings blog readers!

No doubt you all lead busy lives and have other things to do, so I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to give me a few minutes of your time so I can introduce myself to you. My name is Vincent Weaver. I’m what some might call a “revert” to the Catholic faith. Having been raised as a Catholic from birth and attended Catholic schools for 9 years during the “Kum-ba-yah” years of Catholic education, I honestly had a very superficial understanding of all things “Catholic.” (Maybe some of you can relate? Of course, it’s also possible that I just wasn’t paying enough attention…)

After drifting in the wilderness for a decade or so, the Holy Spirit whacked me over the head and suddenly God and my faith became important to me. I owe a great deal of gratitude to all those Evangelical Protestants out there who asked me such good questions and challenged my faith to where I finally started taking the time to learn what “being Catholic” really meant. (Sometimes moving to the Deep South can have unintended consequences.)

Anyway, there are few things in this world I enjoy more than writing about connections between the real and the surreal, between the natural and the supernatural, and between the physical and the spiritual.

What does that mean, exactly? It means you never know what you’re going to get with me, but I’ll always strive to make it an interesting ride. On any given day, you might see mixtures of theology, art and pop culture, politics, astrophysics, business, geography, biology, time and money management, grammar talk, and pretty much any topic related to human sexuality (with an occasional pun thrown in, just for seasoning).

So, buckle up! We’re going on a tangent!

Photo: Deutsche Fotothek‎ [CC BY-SA 3.0 de], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lent Days 10-15: No Silence

Monday evening SuperHusband walks in the door and he’s got a business call, important. The children know what that means. Time for quiet in the house.

They are finishing up the evening clean-up, but thoughtfully withdraw from the kitchen so their dear father won’t be disturbed by the clatter of dishes being washed. Two children, surveying the mess in their bedroom, decide the old sheets of bubble wrap need to be tossed. Immediately. Which means bubbles need to be popped, immediately.

Well aware their father is on the phone, they cross the hall to the bathroom, shut the door, and start jumping on those bubbles.

Children never cleaned so vigorously.

I knock and open and thank them for their consideration, but explain that one mustn’t pop bubble wrap at all while someone is taking an important phone call just meters away.

***

And that summarizes the State of Lent, Days 10-15. FYI the reason for the radio silence here was not a fit of holiness but a significant computer problem which required the services of Senior IT Guy, who was out of town. Seems to be fixed now and we are back on track. Perhaps Lent is likewise. We’ll see.

Photo by Daniel Tibi (Own work) [CC BY 2.0 de], via Wikimedia Commons. If you enter the search term “Trappist” in Wikimedia, most of the results are for beer.

Lent Day 9: Eternal Rest Grant Unto Him . .

UPDATE: Simcha Fisher has the details on how you can help Anthony’s family — and him as well.

+ Please pray for the repose of the soul of Francisco Antonio Gallegos, and the consolation of his heartbroken family. +

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons. From the accompanying text: “. . .the petty trials and difficulties are now fading from the memory, and in their place stand out the big things that really counted and made our adventure . . . worth while.”

Lent Day 8: Can’t Go Wrong Saint Books

PSA because the question came up today: If you want a good readable saint book, you won’t go wrong with Pauline Media’s “Encounter the Saints” series. They are written for about 5th – 6th grade, but I thoroughly enjoy them and find them edifying for myself. It takes about an hour for an adult left alone to read one book in silence. There’s usually a glossary at the back for any Catholic vocabulary words that you might not know.

I am unclear on why I only own about a dozen of these. Need to rectify that.

Saint Teresa of Kolkata Saint Catherine Labouré and Our Lady Saint Gianna Beretta Molla: The Gift of Life

Saint Damien of Molokai -- Hero of Hawaii Saint Maximilian Kolbe -- Marys Knight Saint Isaac Jogues -- With Burning Heart

Artwork courtesy of Pauline Media.

Lent Day 7: Evangelizing Key Chains

I have a guest membership at the local Baptist mega-church’s gym. Before you get scandalized, a “guest” membership means you are not a member of the church. It lets you use the gym, walking track, and exercise classes, and lets your child attend certain activities that require a gym membership. It costs $10 the first year and $5 thereafter.

The extra $5 the first year is because you receive a bar code membership tag to put on your key chain, which you check in with when you arrive. The YMCA has a similar system. So do grocery stories: You use the loyalty-program membership card to earn rewards either for yourself or the school of your choice, depending on the grocery store.

Last week when I handed over my keys to the oil change guys, there flashed Local Mega Baptist Church.

My gym membership card doesn’t specify what kind of member I am — I suppose if I became a proper member of the congregation, I’d keep my card and just upgrade my status. (I won’t though — not going to forsake my birthright for unlimited access to the weight room.)

Today when I stopped at the downtown specialty grocery store after dropping off the 5th grader at St. Urban’s, I again handed over my keys in order get my store loyalty-points. Once again: LM Baptist.

I feel a little bad about this, because sometime I am impatient and cranky at the oil change place. Sometimes I am not the picture of extroverted cheerfulness at the grocery store. It makes the Baptists look bad. I’m sorry, Baptists. Thank you for letting me use your gym anyway.

Photo: By Taxiarchos228 (Own work) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons. I don’t know if I belong to this church or not. I was unable to easily get hold of the particulars. But I might. I belong to this giant mega church with all these locations spread around the world, nearly every one of them containing people as cranky as I am.

Lent Day 6: Purple Shirts

Yesterday as I came out of Mass, a friend of mine noticed I was all Lenten in my purple shirt.

I died a little death.

I have an irrational dislike of being matchy-matchy with the liturgical season. (I don’t care what other people wear. It’s just me I think about — you’ve long suspected that, I’m sure.)

The difficulty is that I got three new purple shirts last fall, and they are my favorite shirts. If I’m going to wear a shirt that is not stained or faded or both, it’s 50-50 on the odds that shirt might be purple. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I like my purple shirts as much as I like my black shirts. They match my purple watch and my purple glasses (which I updated for black glasses, heh) and my purple book and everything. I like purple.

It is not my fault that the Church likes purple, too.

So I decided Sunday morning that I’d get over my irrational aversion and just wear the purple turtleneck and suck it up. I was very hoping no one would notice, but obviously someone did.

There is no deep spiritual meaning to any of this. Some things that happen in Lent have no deep meaning, they just are.

***

PS: My link above to my 2015 discussion of this issue includes some comments on penance on St. Patrick’s day. As this year’s feast does fall on a Friday, you’ll have to consult your bishop to find out your options. There’s not one single answer for the whole US, let alone the whole world.

Photo:By Moose School Productions (http://peteralsop.com/gallery/peters-headshots) [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons. I have no idea whether you should like Peter Alsop or not. I know that I liked his purple shirt photo best, of all the viable choices on Wikimedia.

Lent Day 5: Cheesecake??

As Scott Reeves explains so well, Lent is more than just a self-help program. That said, if you aren’t going to gather up the fortitude to reckon with your near occasions of sin during Lent, when will you?

That is the rationale behind our resolution to eliminate extraneous sugar from the family diet. We theorize, but aren’t certain, that at least one of our children would benefit from a diet with relatively less sugar and relatively more fat, protein, and complex carbohydrates; we suspect that making that transition will improve the mental health of everyone, directly and indirectly; thus it’s a switch that, we think, will make it easier for all of us to become more like the people God created us to be.

That’s the hypothesis. We’re testing it during Lent because honestly it’s hard to make yourself give up something good, easy, and pleasant when you aren’t even sure it matters.

With that in mind, SuperHusband went to Costco.

“Please don’t bring home more of those yogurt things,” I asked him before he left. Yogurt in itself is not a problem food, but the individual servings of flavored yogurts the kids devour like starved goatherds come with a piles of extra sugar.

“But [certain child with low appetite] loves them, and they’re mostly healthy,” SuperHusband observed.

“Well, just look at the nutrition information and do the best you can,” I said.

So he and our reluctant eater went off to Costco and came home with . . . cheesecake.

Um, darling? Lent?

Outside of the penitential seasons, we always get some kind of good treat for Sundays. But during Advent and Lent I tend to scale back — not a hard and fast rule, mind you, but let’s just say that a giant tray of cheesecake is more Easter-Christmas-Birthday than Sackcloth-and-Ashes.

SuperHusband explained: “I looked at all the nutritional information, and this one had the best fat-to-sugar ratio of just about anything. A bazillion times better than those yogurts.”

I believe him. We’d acquired this particular cheesecake a few weeks ago for a birthday party, and it was noticably better than typical, and it was not overly-sweet at all. Very much in the real-food category of convenience items.

Okay, then. My goal isn’t to satisfy some preconceived image of what is and is not “penitential” enough to satisfy the St. Joneses. My goal is to meet the unusual but pressing nutritional needs of one of our children. Cheesecake to fulfill our Lenten resolution it is.

File:Raised slice- 10-18-15.jpg - Picture of a whole cheesecake with one slice removed and being held up by the spatula. — You want to know what penance is? Scrolling through Wikimedia looking for just the right picture of cheesecake . . . and not eating any of your kids’ cake sitting in the fridge. No need for a hair shirt here, thank you.

By Sirabellas (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Lent Day 4: The Chicken of Vengeance

SuperHusband prays morning and night prayer per iBreviary, and when I’m around I pray along with him. Usually he does the bulk of the reading and I get the responses, but this morning he is hoarse with a wicked sore throat, so I was the reader.

It’s a different experience. When he reads, I get to sit back and listen and my thoughts can range over the psalms as they come my way. As the person responsible for pronouncing all the words, in contrast, there’s no time for anything but quick thoughts. Unlike lectoring, especially for a big event, where you take time ahead to pray over the readings and practice them a bit, morning prayer is dashed off on the spot. Unlike praying one of the hours by yourself in silence, when there’s someone else waiting on you, you can’t just stop and ponder at will.

You get one shot at the reading, cold, no stops.

Another difference is that when an idea strikes you, it strikes and sticks and there’s no considering just how apt it is, because you’ve got to keep moving. But the imagery can be quite vivid. For example: Chickens.

The verse that got me was this:

Though the wicked spring up like grass and all who do evil thrive:
they are doomed to be eternally destroyed.

Our Lent down South takes place during true spring. Plum trees are in blossom, azaleas are working on it, the camellias of winter are fading away and the daffodils are long since awakened. The early grasses are bright and vigorous and lush, though they’ll give way in a few months to the stubbornly invasive weed-grasses of summer. All year long, the various grasses take their turns at conquest.

But they cannot withstand the ravages of the chicken.

If a chicken decides she wants a square of dirt, that square of dirt she will have, and everything in it. The chicken does not care what your plans are. The chicken landscapes as she will, and if you wish to make her cooperate with your plans, you’d best set firm boundaries delineating which earth is hers and which is yours.

And so, reading this morning, I could not help, of course, to imagine the Avenging Angel as a chicken. They’re both winged. They are both, to their prey, a fearsome specter. If ever a great chicken comes to destroy you, be afraid.

A chicken in the background on dirt, separated by heavy fencing from a bed of lush grass in the foreground. — Chicken prison. Because she may not have my strawberries.

My Fish is More Penitential Than Your Fish

Is your fish penitential enough?

I’m not sure to what extent my friends are joking and to what extent they are serious, but that’s what they’re talking about. Such-and-such lenten-compliant food is far too good be considered a penance. You must eat this-and-so instead!

No.

No, no, no, and no.

If your idea of being a good Catholic is to find a way to thwart the spirit of the law by wallowing in luxury, you have problems. Your problems will not be fixed by a greasy fish sandwich.

What the Church asks is that we abstain from meat on Fridays, done. That’s the law. What she also asks is that we take on a spirit of penitence throughout the season of Lent, with particular attention to Fridays and perhaps some relaxation on Sundays, depending. That’s the pastoral guidance.

If you find abstaining from meat to be easy, congratulations. The way is wide open for you to take on other more rigorous disciplines.

If you find abstaining from meat to be difficult, give it your best. It’s not fair, perhaps, that this particular discipline is so much more difficult for you than it is for other people, but then again the crosses of this life never are distributed exactly the same to each one. If you are overwhelmed by the rigors of Lenten abstinence, speak to your pastor. Seek advice particularly if you have some medical reason you probably should not abstain, but you aren’t quite sure. The Church isn’t seeking to sink you.

So what about lobster and sushi?

Let’s back up and ask ourselves: Is it acceptable to eat such luxuries on other days of the year?

The answer, I maintain, is that it depends. Now if you observe a life of solidarity with the poor to such an extent that you would never eat such a thing, then you surpass me exceedingly and I don’t really know why you are reading this blog. Please carry on with your devotion and do not let me dissuade you.

If, at the other extreme, you are a thoroughly wretched creature, devoted to nothing but your own pleasure from moment to moment, and that is what motivates your eating of lobster and sushi and gold-crusted cheeses carried on the backs of famished peasants who crawl through tunnels and tiptoe around lava pits to bring you the rarest and most precious of delicacies . . . how about you have a fish sandwich just to see what it’s like?

Said more seriously: Don’t delude yourself into thinking that observing the letter of the law is a Get Out of Hell Free pass. (There is such a thing, but it doesn’t involve eating lobster. Or fish sandwiches.)

Those of us who live in the middle have to exercise the virtue of prudence concerning our own plates, and the virtue of Minding Your Own Business concerning the plates of others. While we ought not excuse ourselves too lightly from the rigors of penance, there are any number of reasons that on some Friday in Lent the eating of a relatively luxurious item might in fact be entirely consistent with a sound spiritual life.

–> To evaluate, take into account both the particular circumstances of the meal at hand and the context of your Lenten observances overall.

Do you have other better choices?
Is this a special occasion?
Do you even get to choose the menu, or are you at someone else’s mercy?
Are you making a suitable effort to be penitential this Lent?
Or are you just cruising along all week with no regard for the spirit of the season?
Is this item in fact a gratuitous luxury compared to your other options, or does it just have that reputation as a byword?

But in all cases, you are only evaluating your personal spiritual life. I hope you do that all year.

And from me . . .

Lenten Tactics: Thwarting the Meat Demon

More Strategizing for Meatless Fridays

About the Required Penances – Some thoughts on the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox approaches to Lent, and the value of each.