Charles Christmas Eastercatholic was raised in a devout household. His family went to church religiously–twice a year, as regular as clockwork.
His parents encouraged their children to give up things for Lent as a form of spiritual discipline, and Charles marveled at how spiritually disciplined he felt after giving up chocolate, or Coke, or pizza, or even–one year–television!
As he grew and matured, however, he began to realize that many of his fellow Catholics and other Christians were missing the point of all this giving stuff up for Lent.
“It’s really not about denying oneself chocolate,” he thought. “Or Coke or pizza or even–one year–television. Instead, it’s about disciplining oneself so that one will be prepared to deny oneself in situations of temptation–to refuse to sin.”
“So why not cut out the middleman?” he mused. “Why not go straight for the big enchilada?“
With a firm and beatific resolve, Charles made his decision: “This year, I will give up sin for Lent!”
He would, of course, still allow himself to have it on Sundays.
What do you think?
It sounds like today’s first reading (Is. 58:1-9).
To paraphrase the complaint part:
“Why do we give up chocolate and you do not see it? We give up TV and you take no note of it?”
p.s. Ah, so that’s what that @ symbol means (I don’t tweet).
p.p.s. Looks like you rearranged the furniture. I’ll have to take a look around.
One of my pet peeves is the idea that the Lenten fast can consist of anything other than actually abstaining from something which is good. One variant is the “I’ll do something extra instead” variant; another is the one you give here, the “I’ll fast from sin.” I encourage people to do something extra during Lent, and I encourage people to work on particularly troubling sins during Lent, but fasting is something different from both, and neither one substitutes for it. Christ had no sin from which to abstain, nor could He possibly have done more since He was completely submissive to the will of the Father—yet He still fasted.
I think he’s definitely missing the point. The reason for the fast is to have a physical manifestation of what it is to do without. To feel the suffering physically. That is the beauty of our catholic faith. God understands that we are physical beings and must have our spiritual truths grounded in a physical reality. We EAT the bread, DRINK the wine, TOUCH the water, KNEEL for prayer, and so we DO WITHOUT something that we physically have come to rely on. Many practices of our catholic faith can be discarded because of childlike reasoning and understanding. But the beauty of our faith is that if you delve deeper, those same practices reveal so much more of what God intends for us through the practice of our faith. And so the childlike giving up of chocolate can be something simple or it can actually be a physical manifestation of our relinquishing the hold that something has in our life.
I think Charles is taking his religion a little too far. I can see giving up sin maybe one day- Friday, perhaps, instead of meat. Let’s avoid extremes.
He’s missed the point – two points to be specific. What he forgot about, while deciding between chocolate, facebook, TV or sin, are the other parts of Lent. Prayer and Almsgiving.