Lent. Ah got to be the 2nd most important conversation period after Xmas (ok Christmas). After the question “What’s Santa bringing you?” the runner up is “What are you giving up for Lent?” Now it’s not “What are you doing for Lent?” It’s “What are you giving up?”
Lent is a very Catholic thing, although I do know one or two Protestants who do the the Lent thing too mind you. Although I rarely go to mass I do do the Lent thing.
I have noticed that it has it’s unofficial rules,obviously invented by the Irish-we’re good at get out clauses.
1 You can be too young/old to give something up
2 As some people give up “the drink” for Lent and St Patrick’s Day falls during the “holy period” You are allowed to break you Lenten fast on this day.This also applies to sweets,cookies, whatever etc I personally think this clause is for wimps-and never adhere to it.
3 If your birthday falls during the period this is also an excuse.I mean how can a child have a birthday party without the goodies and how can you go to a friend’s birthday party and not indulge in the feast of goodies.
4 Bending the rules-some children would give up sweets but not crisps (potato chips, or as we in Derry say crips) And some parents would allow the offspring to eat sweets on a Sunday-as “Sundays were not lent” (I remember my sisters hording the weekly sweet collection and at the stroke of midnight on Saturday evening it was a dive into a multitude of enamel rotting delicacies)
5 –Rather than give up sweets. We would give up swearing,dodging homework-or just something we should not be doing in the first place.
Like I said I do do the lent thing-and I’m good at it. One year I gave up sweets and chocolate and I actually managed to stay off for three years. What started me again? A very attractive new girl at work who I was flirting outrageously with offered me a square of chocolate and I fell off the wagon. Another time I gave my self a real challenge and added meat to my “off” list-including chicken. Now this was a real struggle for the first week. I was even having nightmares about it.One I remember vividly involved a very sexy woman from a car advert offered me herself or a plate of steak and chips-yep I took the steak
And the whole forty days and forty nights thing. What’s with that? Somebody told me this was a rough translation from a Hebrew word that basically meant “a long time”
So when the great flood was forty days and forty nights this could have been 100s of years.And when Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights it might just have been five or six hours. I mean they had no watches then-had they?
Some people say the Lenten going off stuff is the easy way out and we should be doing something good instead. A woman at work says I should be going to Mass every morning at 7:00 am or at night during Lent-like I said they are trying to bring religion into everything now! Even though I am anything but devout the Lenten habit is just that –a habit. And helps get rid of some excess weight too For me I think the Lent thing for me is more of a personal purge that a spiritual thing.And maybe it’s easier to not do something than take on a new challenge.
Love the commentary and observations! I've never practiced Lent officially, but I like the concept behind it, and you idea to use it as an excuse to make a change, purge old habits, etc. The Irish Lenten exceptions are hilarious. We do like our indulgences and pleasures, don't we!
ReplyDeleteIn my last job, I worked with a woman who drove everyone in the office nuts. She was always in everyone else's business and had crazy ideas about how stuff should be done. My co-workers and I were always complaining about her to one another. That year, a group of us decided that for Lent, we would give up complaining about her (even though no one in the group celebrated Lent). We had to work with her and all the negativity wasn't productive and just made us feel grumpy all the time. If we did feel the need to vent about her, we had to put money in a mug. It did help cut back on the complaining and negativity somewhat, though we also collected quite a bit of change in that mug.