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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Lent 2014
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If you want to give up something for lent, don't give up chocolate, give up gossip or envy or anger and all those wonderful things that chew up communities and families.
All of that goes without saying. It's not like people don't know gossip and envy and anger are bad and they don't hear about it the rest of the year. It's already understood and besides, in my experience, most lenten writings, homilies and mission touch on those subjects anyways.
The asceticism and the discipline is to tame the self and open yourself to God's grace. "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much", Luke 16:10. If you can't resist a piece of chocolate whose to say you'll be good at holding back your tongue?
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Number me as another one who thought of Gordissimo when I saw the title of this thread. Strange as he never really noticed me.....
Anyway, my understanding is that Lenten practice traditionally involves giving something up and taking something on. Often the taking something on has been to read a challenging book - which goes back to the Rule of Benedict in the Fifth Century.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
The asceticism and the discipline is to tame the self and open yourself to God's grace. "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much", Luke 16:10. If you can't resist a piece of chocolate whose to say you'll be good at holding back your tongue?
Thank you for that, Pancho. I've always felt benefit form my small sacrifices at Lent but, these days, people seem to scorn my battle with sugar addiction and suggest I should work on my personality instead. As you suggest, that's an ongoing struggle that needs more than forty days.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Of course all these things don't 'work' in isolation and are meant to form part of a pattern and rule of life.
Perhaps they only make real sense in that sort of context?
What does make me chuckle, though, is how some people who make a big deal about not observing these things often invent their own equivalents and special ways of doing things ...
Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, of course, but I've known people who dismiss this sort of thing as 'religious' in the perjorative sense who are just as, if not more, 'religious' in ways they don't recognise as such ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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