February 19, 2010
Friday after Ash Wednesday
By Melanie Rigney
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. (Isaiah 58: 6-7)
My sacrifice, God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn. (Psalms 51:18-19)
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”(Matthew 9:14-15)
Piety
Lord, help me to fast in all the ways that please and honor you this Lenten season.
Study
When I was nine or ten, I gave up candy bars for Lent. Sort of.
Every Saturday, my father and mother loaded us into our Ford station wagon to go to the Sunshine grocery store. I’d get to pick out five candy bars that had to last until the following Saturday. I’d eat one each day after school. It would have never occurred to me to go a day without a candy bar—or to have two in one day or to share my stash with anyone else.
So, this particular Lent, each week after we got home from Sunshine, my father would get down a round metal box from a high cupboard in the kitchen. I’d make a production of putting my candy bars in the box, then he’d put it back in place.
Easter Sunday came around, and I got up before anyone else. The Easter Bunny’s gifts of white chocolate and jellybeans and marshmallow Peeps couldn’t have interested me less. No, what I wanted to do was to take that metal box and have a total pig-out. I pulled over a stepstool, got the box, and went to the kitchen table.
I opened a 3 Musketeers® bar, my favorite, and took a huge bite. Yuck! I looked at the bar—the chocolate was a funny light brown color. Then I opened a Brach’s mint patty. This time I looked before I bit; it had a flat look to it rather than the usual sheen. I didn’t go any further; instead, I threw the box and its contents into the garbage.
What was up with God, I wondered. I hadn’t promised that I’d never eat the candy bars, just that I wouldn’t eat them during Lent. It seemed to me that God had gone back on His end of the deal.
Childish logic and childish behavior, to be sure. But I wonder how many of us still talk about giving up something for Lent, rather fasting in the far more challenging way today’s first reading describes.
As Catholics, we are called to include penance that subtracts as part of our Lenten journey; for many of us that means no meat on Fridays and only one full meal on those days. We also are called to include penance that takes us out of our own little metal boxes and adds to our service, to our prayer time, to our financial contributions to our parishes and charities. Both types of penance can enrich and inform our faith. But if we approach the “adding” type thoughtfully and prayerfully, it can lead us to a fuller understanding not only of God but also of ourselves and our brothers and sisters. And that type of understanding doesn’t go stale after a few weeks.
Action
If you live in the Diocese of Arlington and haven’t already made a pledge to the Bishop’s Lenten Appeal, please consider doing so as part of your penance that adds this Lent.
