#1 Melanie Bettinelli’s aiming for a blog post a day during Lent, and I think I’m in. Just as a goal, not as a penance. I’m happier if I’m blogging. So that’s like a good deed for my family? Or something? We’ll see.
#2 I’m stalking my spot at the Register waiting for my rant about Lenten penances to show up. Sooner or later it’s supposed to get there. Meanwhile, here’s bonus content: There’s a nasty bit of contagion going around today about how the USCCB’s guidance for fasting isn’t really fasting, get it together you wimps.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the shocking world of people who can’t gain weight. It’s a thing. It’s an annoying thing, if you happen to be a person who is perfectly capable of storing away all kinds of emergency fuel reserves, and you must grocery shop and cook for the people whose bodies don’t do that.
I don’t have any particular difficulty fasting. I dislike it. I’d rather be eating. But sure enough, unless I’m sick or pregnant or something, my body does a great job of saving up fat for future usage, and carefully doling out a ration of that stored energy if I happen to be not eating.
Not everyone’s body does that. I live with people who have to plan, for serious, in order to get through a day doing the two little meals and the one normal meal, and yes they totally depend on the part about being able to have a glass of milk in between times. It’s not about diet. It’s about having a body that is wonderfully adapted to our world of abundance (unlike mine, which keeps insisting there could be a famine any minute, better stock up!), and very poorly adapted to fluctuations in food supply.
And get this: We have a priest shortage. Thus the Church in her wisdom, rather than setting a bar ideal for the robust among us and directing those who need to do so to bother Father about a dispensation, has instead made it acheivable to do the minimum.
If you are able to do more than the minimum, I sure hope that’s what you’re doing today. I also hope you’ve contrived to make sure it’s not so obvious what you’re up to.
#3 I used to be bothered by today’s Gospel, in which Jesus tells us to keep our fasting and prayers a secret, and then there we go getting ashes on our heads two minutes after. I’m over that now.
Photo: Me with a sample of Fr. Gonzo’s latest artwork.
There’s two reasons why. The first is that the warning is about prayer and fasting, and listen guys, just because my body is in Mass doesn’t mean I’m praying, so that’s a big fat secret, and anyway how do you know I’m not spending the day having two ice cream bars and a giant plate of lasagna? You don’t. So I’m good.
Meanwhile . . . the thing about the ashes is that they aren’t a sign of holiness. I’m sorry if someone got you all confused about that. The annual application of ashes is like putting on a blanket apology to the world. Yeah, I suck. I know it. Probably don’t know it enough, but I’m at least making a nod that direction?
So FYI, anyone at all can go get ashes. If you’re wretched and you know it, Catholic Church has you covered.
#4 I’m thinking maybe I should post a selfie a day for Lent. As penance for us all?
Ha. Can’t decide if I’m kidding or not.
#5 Since I am no St. Therese, allow me to complain about church music for a bit. There are two tunes that I have grown possessive about, in a case of sacredness-by-association. Picardy, the setting for “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” is the first. Once you’ve created a link between a catchy, soulful tune and a description of the absolutely most intimate moment between creature and Creator this side of Heaven, I just can’t bear to hear the tune co-opted for other, not-so-exalted topics. Even if the lyrics in question are otherwise unobjectionable (and sometimes they are not, but there are limits to how much I’m willing to make you suffer today), that’s a no.
The other one, and this is where we get all Lenten, is Passion Chorale. Please. People. I know that it’s not Good Friday yet. I know that you have composed many lovely meditations on Lenten spirituality that have the same meter. I get that you are trying to make a mental connection on this path to the cross or something. You are wrong. Wrong! Stop it! Give me “Oh Sacred Head Surrounded” or give me silence. Or a different tune, same meter, that’ll be fine. There’s nothing wrong with your little Lenty-chit-chat dog ear poetry. But hands off Passion Chorale. It’s taken.
#6 My husband wishes I would show up at church this evening to hear a rendition of this absolutely awesome music:
But here is the truth about me. This other little chant, which the cantor sung at Mass earlier today, was like getting a late Valentine:
One of my favorite songs. I only know the chorus, and every year I mean to fix that, and maybe one day I will. But it sure was easy to keep my Lenten smiley face up, just like Jesus says, with that for our ash-walk music.
Life is good.