Okay, folks, it is Lent time again, or at least it soon will be. In some ways I look forward to Lent. In some ways, I don't. Here's one reason.
In the name of getting ready for Lent, people cavort and engage in all sorts of gender-bending drunken debauchery. And then, I would suspect, very, very, very, very few of them show up for Ash Wednesday Mass. Why? Because everyday is Fat Tuesday when you don't follow Christ.
A faithful Catholic is not a puritan. He doesn't scorn a feast because it is a feast. But the faithful Catholic also knows the value of the fast. In the fasting, the feast is sweeter. It also serves to bring us to choose between two feasts: the one now or the eternal one the Lord hosts. Before Easter comes Good Friday. Before the joy comes the fast.
St. Bernadette once commented about how the things done on Mardi Gras were never made up for and could not be made for in a hundred Lents. I speak for myself deliberately, and for some accidentally, when I say, I am already too far behind in following the Lord to waste any momentum on backward motion.
May your Lent this year be well met, well done, and well rewarded.
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