Perpetual Lent The pandemic is already a period of mourning.
I don't know if this Commonweal link will be accessible to everyone. However if it is a brief article that raises an important question even though not giving a very satisfying answer.
How does one enter a time of fasting, weeping, and rending of hearts when you feel like you’ve already been in one for so long—when COVID-19, racism, xenophobia, political drama, ecclesial division, and the Capitol insurrection have kept us in a state of mourning and weeping for the past year?
As I’m bombarded with reminders on social media that Lent is upon us, I’ve observed a spiritual disconnect. The way that our Catholic institutions are inviting us to enter this season makes it sound like it’s liturgical business as usual
Church leaders cannot blithely ask hard-hit communities to consider fasting and almsgiving as unemployment rates rise and families struggle to meet expenses and put food on the table.
So what is to be done? This Lent presents us with an opportunity to examine the desert that we have been living in for the past year. If Church leaders and institutions wish to lead us in our Lenten spiritual journey, it is imperative that they unequivocally acknowledge the seriousness of the times and the horrors the pandemic has wrought. They need to provide opportunities for people to unpack the traumas of lost livelihood, lost loved ones, racism, and xenophobia
When Lent invites us to enter the desert—to return to God with our whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning—it is actually an invitation to recognize that we are already there, because there is suffering and injustice somewhere
I guess I see the question it raises and the need to face the present situation as important observations. I am not sure I know how to go about doing that, though I agree with her last observation. This Lent may hit home for almost everyone, however surely past Lents have hit home for the many people who live lives of perpetual suffering and injustice every Lent. So maybe there is something wrong if Lent is the only time we face these issues?
I forget to include my post from the PrayTell blog back in 2011:
I look at Lent as a time for self-reflection and change, irregardless. Right now, I'm cooking up all my meat and, when I've finished it, I'm trying the vegan thing again. I gave up the veganism when my mother moved in. Wasn't going to subject her to that. But, yes, people are suffering quite a bit and the purpose of Lent in such a time is an interesting question.
ReplyDeleteWell the best way to become a vegan is to have a very good vegan cook, or perhaps just a very good cook.
DeleteMy friend Betty who is staying with me for the pandemic is a vegetarian and a very good cook. She does not eat meat or fish or eggs, or refined sugar. She also excludes a lot of things like sulfites from her diet. She does eat dairy products, and honey. I really like her vegetarian cooking but that is probably because she is a really good cook.
I still eat meat so that she doesn't have to cook all the time. She was willing to cook meat and would probably do a better job than I, but I said just cook the things that you like. Since I always cooked for one, I always do up a big batch and freeze most of it so that I do not have to cook often. Betty likes to do things in big batches too but we end up eating it rather than freezing it. I have become very creative in combining her vegetarian dishes with my meat dishes.
That IS the secret, Jack. Unfortunately, I'm a bad cook. But if I follow some recipes, it's at least edible. Once I went to the City Tavern in Philadelphia. They only use recipes from the revolutionary period. The illumination is equivalent to candlelight. I ordered a tofu vegan dish. Interesting fact: the recipe came from Benjamin Franklin. And it tasted great. I am glad you have a good vegan cook.
DeleteI could eat vegan if I didn't have to give up dairy.
DeleteYes. No cheese is tough. But then vegetarian is pretty good.
DeleteI prefer to look at Lent as a time for reflection. A time for quiet. A time to sit in silence and try to hear what God is telling me to do. This year I am focusing on becoming really regular with centering prayer.
DeleteAs far as Lenten practices go, there was a time when I decided to give up meat for the entire month. I had been inspired by a Greek Orthodox friend who gives it up every year, along with Wed and Friday fasting.
It was a piece of cake. I didn't miss meat at all, as I love vegetables, grains etc. I could easily be a vegetarian, but not a vegan - I need the dairy. My husband wants at least fish or chicken with dinner, but he eats little red meat (primarily for health reasons).
I often don't eat the meat I cook for my husband, just the veggies, salads etc. Unfortunately he doesn't think a meal is really a full meal without some kind of dead animal on the plate. But even he eats vegetarian at least once/week - because I'm the cook! Lots and lots of great vegetarian cookbooks. I have a vegan friend - but so much of her diet is fake food (fake cheese, fake butter, fake meat etc) that I find it very unappetizing. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't really like vegetables! She also doesn't like to cook and doesn't, since she was widowed. She eats out a lot when times are normal.
It does seem as if we have been in Lent for a long time. One of the themes I find least helpful is the idea that what we are going through is in some way a punishment from God. That if we were just better people, and not such sinners, that God would turn his favor towards us. This places God in the mode of a capricious parent whose love we have to earn.
ReplyDeleteI would not wish to minimize racism, xenophobia et al. And I certainly agree that the church can reflect on these problems and sins, be penitent to the extent it has contributed to them, offer opportunities for healing, work for justice and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut.
Lent also is a time for all of us, individually, to turn back to God. For each of us to "repent, and believe", as we are instructed in this Sunday's Gospel. We can and must do this when racism, xenophobia, et al are waxing around us, and when those things are waning around us. Because the world can be hard and unfair doesn't excuse us from tending to our own relationship with God and the state of our own souls.
It is true, as the author observes, that the liturgical year marches on, regardless of the ordinary or extraordinary things happening around us. This is a feature, not a bug. We are called to repent during Lent, and rejoice during Easter, during good times and bad times. I am sure she is right that this year may be harder than most in that respect. But we can try to transcend our personal emotional state - our mood - and be citizens of God's kingdom who are living with but apart from the earthly travails which surround us.
Easier to say than do. If I may make a friendly suggestion: start with fasting, praying and/or almsgiving. And grow from there.
About the liturgical year marching on, being a "feature, not a bug", in many ways that's comforting. Something predictable in a time where much seems unpredictable.
DeleteThe author mentions almsgiving as being difficult for some people now. But it doesn't have to be money. Alms can be kindness to someone, or prayers for them. Food pantries have been tapped out, contributing non-perishable food items to them is a form of almsgiving.
A few thoughts thoughts on corporate sin, fasting, justice
Deletehttps://tinyurl.com/3de4vyuk
"We know how to name individual sin and evil, but we do not know how to name corporate sin and evil. We have ended up with a very inconsistent morality, which few take seriously any more or even know how to follow. That is why we need a consistent ethic of life."
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/lent-with-st-francis-true-fasting
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house.
—Isaiah 58:6–7
An early follower of Francis was not able to sustain the extreme fasting that Francis himself practiced. Rather than shaming the man, Francis broke his own fast so that his hungry brother could eat.He commanded the table to be set, though it was filled with poor things, and, as is often the case, where wine was lacking water took its place. First he himself began to eat, and then he invited the rest of the brothers to share this duty of charity, lest that brother should waste away from shame.… He said that to deprive the body indiscreetly of what it needs was a sin ...Religious practices can never become more important than the end to which they lead: love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus makes this point again and again in the Gospels. It’s a good lesson at the beginning of Lent. What we do for Lent is far less important than why we do it. The time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are less to benefit us than to draw us closer to God and improve the lives of those around us.
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/minute-meditations/the-fasting-god-wants
"Isaiah says explicitly that God prefers another kind of fasting which changes our actual lifestyle and not just punishes our body. (The poor body is always the available scapegoat to avoid touching our purse, our calendar, or our prejudices.)
Isaiah makes a very upfront demand for social justice, non-aggression, taking our feet off the necks of the oppressed, sharing our bread with the hungry, clothing the naked, letting go of our sense of entitlement, malicious speech, and sheltering the homeless. He says very clearly this is the real fast God wants! It is amazing that we could ever miss the point. It is likely that what we later called the corporal works of mercy came from this passage."
Tim Kaine had a nice reflection in the WaPo yesterday about prayer and Virginia's overturning its death penalty law. Snip: "As I began my legal career, I represented death-row inmates on a pro bono basis. One prisoner was executed in 1987; we shared his last meal a few minutes before the state electrocuted him. I represented another executed in 1996, walking him into the death chamber and holding his hand while he was strapped to a table for the state to kill him by lethal injection. These searing experiences, face-to-face with the humanity of my clients, made me pray for the day when Virginia would discard this brutal institution."
DeleteRightly or wrongly, Catholics in our parish often become so consumed with abortion that they lose sight of other injustices that make God weep. I have not heard any Catholics talking about this turn of events in Virginia, but I hope it is noted and celebrated.
Speaking of "other injustices that make God weep" did anyone see this article about Sister Diana Ortiz, who passed away recently. Hard to see how any Christian could defend torture.
DeleteOh my. That is a shock. I read part of her book but couldn't finish it. It was too much. The things we justified in the name of fighting communism.
DeleteStanley, this the first I knew that she wrote a book, but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to read it, either. I did read something of her story years ago. Hard to understand such bloody-minded, pointless brutality.
DeleteKatherine, it was called "The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth". If I find it, I may make another effort to read it. She became pregnant from the rape and had an abortion. That adds even more dimension to the horror. The most controversial part of her account was that she heard an American speaking English. That would have been CIA or a CIA hire. In the heated up anticommunism of the Reagan era, I can believe it. With terrorism replacing communism as the excuse to do anything, we had Abu Graib.
DeleteI did read that she later regretted the abortion, but at the time she had been so traumatized by the rape and torture that she couldn't go through the pregnancy. I don't think anyone can judge her.
DeleteNCR has a nice article today on Sr. Dianna's life.
DeleteThanks, Katherine. It was a lovely article.
DeleteI guess I am getting old and forgetful and failed to recognize that I wrote a very good answer to this article back in 2011 for the PrayTell blog.
ReplyDeleteIt rethinks the time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in terms of our most precious resource, time.
Jack, is this the one from 2011? https://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2011/03/28/television-time-use-lent-and-the-divine-office/
DeleteIf so, good suggestion about keeping a time diary.
You're doing better than I can about remembering anything of note from 2011. I guess it was a good year, because I can't remember any disasters.
A couple of more articles I like at NCR. (and there is also an article about drive-up fish frys)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/faith-seeking-understanding/lets-go-back-basics-lent-during-pandemic-year
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/lent-we-must-pair-our-faith-action
I liked your idea about small chunks of time, Jack. My childhood Catholic friends had prayer triggers they learned from the nuns and taught me--if you heard an ambulance siren, pray a Hail Mary for the sick, those without faith when you hear churchbells, etc. It became kind of a game when we were kids, and I have forgotten some of the triggers. Maybe others remember this? I still pray for those in distress or trouble when I hear a siren.
ReplyDeleteI remember praying when you heard an ambulance or emergency vehicle siren. I still do that. Didn't know about the church bells. I do notice the different bell sounds, such as tolling for a funeral. I pray for the dead when I hear that. I miss the joyous pealing for Sunday that our church bells made when I was a kid. If you stood on a hill and were quiet, you could even hear the bells from where we lived in the country. Our church bells here ring for the Angelus, at noon and 6:00 pm.
DeleteThe bells in our parish have names, Johannes and Antoninus, "Big John and Little Tony".
DeleteYes, we were taught to pray when we heard a siren. I still do. Don't remember any church bells in my So Cal Catholic childhood. Maybe the churches were too new and never installed bells. There are a couple of churches near my home with bells, and the Washington National Cathedral has magnificent bells. But, it's downtown and I am no longer downtown very often as an old, retired lady.
DeleteJean, have your read Practicing the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence? I read it years ago, and that may have been what started my habit of conversing with God during the day, and reminding myself to thank God for the privilege of doing the dishes and laundry while doing them!
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Delete"The Practice of the Presence of God" is one of my all time favorites.
DeleteIt's interesting that I can converse with God but not the saints ( except St Anthony now and then) whereas you feel close to the saints.
ReplyDeleteI talk to God. I don't talk to Jesus. You relate to people.
I don't know if there is a God, or what God is really like ( loving? Vengeful? Indifferent? A trinity?) but I talk to God all the time anyway.
Off stopic - we are among the millions whose covid vaccine shot appointments were cancelled because the weather shiut down deliveries. We should have had dose 2 by yesterday. They guarantee we'll get it before the 42 days are up, but we were planning to leave LA to drive home next Saturday. Never thought I'd be so disappointed that I couldn't get a shot!
ReplyDeleteI hope that all f those here can get the vaccine soon. Especially Jean, who would be eligible here even if not yet 65 because of the cancer.
Are you able to make an appt for a shot in your home area? Here they give priority to those who need dose #2. But the rules are different all over.
DeleteCancer/chronic illness doesn't make a diff here, though they are now asking that question, and they are not requiring people to be vaccinated only in their county of residence.
We are slotted in for March 8 at Rite Aid. Heard they had been named a state partner and jumped on the Web site right away. Got a slot at the nearest outlet about 25 miles away. Went back to the home page to send the link to friends, and the system was overloaded already and the 404 ERROR message was all you could get. But we did get text and email confirmation, which I took as a good sign.
I am trying not to get my hopes up. As Jim noted on another thread, having an appt does not mean they will actually have vax that day.
Good luck to you both in getting your shots on schedule. Hopefully the supply is increasing enough that the process can be more orderly.
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