Lent

Yeah… that’s the best title I could come up with.  I suck as a blogger.

So .. let’s talk about Lent.   Preempt:  I’m going to talk about Lent from a Catholic point of view, because I am Catholic.  If you celebrate Lent and you are not Catholic.. please ignore most of what I say.  Thank you!

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus the beginning of  Lent. What is Lent (say you non-Lent celebrating readers?)?  (OMG.. I’m going to do my best to not totally butcher this)

Well.. Lent is the 40 day liturgical season between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.   In the Catholic faith, it’s suppose to symbolize the 40 days that Jesus took when he went into the desert to pray and fast, and was forced to endured temptations by Satan.

During the Lenten season, those crazy Catholics (hey.. I am one.. so I can say that) will have 2 days of fasting.  Catholic fasting is where you’re only allowed to eat one full meal that day, and no meat products.  You are permitted to have two small snacks that together do equal the one full meal (the elderly and small children do not have to fast).  Tomorrow (Ash Wednesday) is one of those fasting days.  Good Friday is the other.   In addition to the two fasting days, Catholics abstain from eating meat each Friday during Lent.    Meat, as defined by the Catholic church is anything BUT fish… I know I know.. how is a fish not meat?   Don’t ask me.. ask a priest.   I will tell you that last year my at-the-time, soon-to-be husband asked why Catholics didn’t eat meat on Fridays and why was fish not considered meat.   I, having no idea (I’m a cradle Catholic and I went to public school… why would I know this??), decided that I would ask a priest the next time I saw one.   So I did, and the answer (or story) I got was interesting.

You see… in the day of the early Vatican, the idea was that, Jesus had fasted and gone without and so should good pious Catholics.  At the time, meat (beef, pork, poultry) was considered an extravagant luxury.   Only the very wealthy or well-to-do could afford ‘meat’.  But anyone could fish and fish was considered the ‘poorer man’s food’.  (I know I have to be butchering this …. ).  Anyway, so the Vatican thought that by abstaining from meat (read: Luxury) on all Fridays, it would remind Catholics of what Jesus had endured in the desert (and of the solemness of the Lenten time).  Over time, it evolved to be abstinence of meat during Lenten Fridays only (although, according to the Vatican, abstaining from eating meat on Fridays year round is still an option.  Apparently, the Vatican rule is that if you choose to eat meat on Fridays outside of Lent, you are do something to ‘offset’ that luxury during the remainder of the year).   What interested me the most in the story was that the idea was to have Catholics eat a low cost, basic meal…to go without a luxury.    But what has happened is that people now use Lenten Fridays as an excuse to go out and have a lobster and crab leg dinner.  This, people, defeats the purpose of going without a luxury. So.. no lobster during Lent alright?

Anyway… I’m off topic.. kinda.   I really wanted to talk about the act of  ‘giving something up’ during Lent.  It’s traditional for Catholics, during the Lenten season, to give something up besides meat on Fridays.  Over the years, I’ve given up the following:

• Soda:  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  I was in high school and I substituted sodas with Gatorade or Sweet Tea.   I probably shouldn’t have found a ’soda substitutes’ but I was in high school… cut me some slack
• Chocolate:  For several years I gave up chocolate.  It was hard when I was in middle/high school, but once I got into college, it was easier.
• Candy:  This one was always hard.    I would try to rationalize things that weren’t ‘candy’ like mints, gum, marshmallows, etc.   I always have problems when I give up candy.
• Alcohol:  I don’t really drink alot, and I never really did, even in college.   So the year I gave up alcohol was really cheating.  You can’t give something up that you don’t really do.
• Swearing:  Yeaaaaahhhhhh… so I never really got through this one.  I can’t help it.  I really like to swear.   I promised that I could do it.  I could go 40 days without saying a swear word.     I didn’t make it out of the church parking lot on Ash Wednesday before I was swearing at a man who cut me off as I was trying to pull onto a busy downtown street to get back to school before I missed class.    FAIL

So this year, I thought long and hard about what I was going to ‘give up’ for Lent, and I just couldn’t thinking of anything.   In my last post, I mentioned having  over 700 entries to read in my Google Reader.  I thought for a moment about giving up Google Reader, but that seemed so trite.   As I was reading some of the backlogs  of one of my favorite, beautiful bloggers, Fat Bridesmaid, I discovered that she had come up with the most perfect thing to give up for Lent.

She’s giving up laziness for Lent!!!    Her promise is to work out at least 30 minutes a day for the next 40 days!

I think it’s GENIUS!!!   I mean.. it’s so easy to be lazy.  So convenient and comfortable… even tempting.      It’s just what I need to get myself motivated and to get out of my rut, while giving up something that I love (lazy couch time).

So I’m stealing her idea joining her party!  Click here, here, here and here to see her posts (and ‘rules’ if you will) about giving up laziness for Lent, and if you feel so inclined…join the party.

For now, I’m off to figure out when what time I’m going to the gym tomorrow.   I’m totally going to Kill Laziness!

Um…. do you think it’s wrong to kill something for Lent?!?!