Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017

                Yesterday, I was in the grocery store to purchase buttermilk pancake mix, blueberries, syrup and sausages. Maybe she was just making idle conversation, but the grocery clerk wondered aloud to me why they were selling a lot of pancake mix and pancake fixings. “What’s going on? Is it some sort of pancake day?”  Well, I managed to give her a very short liturgical lesson, explaining that it was Pancake Tuesday which marks the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I’m not sure that she was much the wiser nor probably cared all that much. Lent seemed to have no meaning for her.

                I would argue that Lent is about far more than just pancakes on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) – a symbolic gesture to use up the rich baking ingredients like butter, eggs, and fat before the season of fasting and prayer begins. Therefore, Mari Gras has become an excessive, everything-goes festival in some places. One website describes it this way: “Lent is a time of fasting and penance in preparation for Easter. Carnival, then, can rightly be seen as the indulgence before the fast. It is one last “binge” before having to give something up for 40 days… In general, Mardi Gras revelers engage in a binge of sinning before a time of consecration to God. The celebration of Mardi Gras fosters the notion that you can do whatever you want on Fat Tuesday, as long as you show up in church on Ash Wednesday. It’s the bender before the benediction,” (Gotquestions?.org)

                I have never been very much into the whole idea of giving something up for Lent. At its best, it is a well-intentioned gesture to symbolize personal sacrifice, fasting, spirituality and acts as a small reminder of our walk with our crucified Lord. But giving up chocolate or coffee, for example, seems pretty small potatoes in the development of our discipleship and spirituality.

Don’t get me wrong. Certainly, there are plenty of bad habits that one could give up. The Seven Deadly Sins covers that: envy, gluttony, greed or avarice, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath in all their variant and sometimes subtle forms. Now we’re talking big leagues!

                But I have always been an advocate that even if one is going to give something up for Lent that perhaps we should also consider taking up some new habit for good, volunteer for some good cause, do some random deeds of kindness, give a helping hand, or do something extra for someone. There is an implied “sacrifice” in this as one gives up time, energy, and one’s self for something good and honourable. One also doesn’t have time to do any of the bad stuff that tempts and intrigues us. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” (Romans 12: 21).

                Easier said than done, but hey, we now have six weeks in which to work it out. We have Jesus from whom to take our cues and find a super model for our Lenten living.  We are called to exercise our faith and practice unselfishly our liturgy of love, compassion, grace, mercy and forgiveness, to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, “so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,” (Colossians 1:10).

                The thoughtful and beneficial season of Lent begins today. So, let’s give it up for Lent!

Dale