Cboy- Mom, what are you giving up for Lent?
Me- I don't know yet. Probably coffee, alcohol, meat and dairy products. What are you giving up?
Cboy- Playstation? (yup, he said that with a question in his voice)
Me- YOU are going to give up playing video games for FORTY WHOLE DAYS?
Cboy - giggles....no.
TOO FUNNY. We'll try to come up with something more tangible this morning before school.
About Lent
Catholics and non-Catholics alike honor the 40-day period of Lent in different ways. Lent is treated as a time to reflect on one’s life. In the Catholic faith, it mirrors the 40 days that Jesus is said to have spent in the desert, refusing the temptation of Satan, before his death and resurrection on Easter. You are supposed to fast on some days if you can, abstain from eating meat on Fridays and abstain from (or give up) some other pleasure, food, activity, behavior that you've engaged in the past for purposes of mimicking the sacrifice of Jesus. The thing you abstain from doesn't have to necessarily be bad, per se. Like I know many people give up chocolate and we all know that God gave us chocolate because he wants us to be happy. (yup Benjamin Franklin got it all wrong, ha!)
Many people, of various Christian sects and even nonreligious people, use Lent as a sort of New Year's resolution to give up bad habits. I like because it is about self-reflection, getting closer to God, and abstaining from vices that make life easier and consequently easy for us to forget how good we have it and how we take for granted our blessings.
Many of us combine the period with other goals, like we'll give up junk food so we can lose weight for Spring break or an upcoming reunion, but under the guise of Lent. It's all good, so long as during the process people use the ancillary benefits of self-restraint to focus on other things in their lives as they may have to supplement the absence of one vice for a good practice, otherwise. I'm no preacher, but I anxiously await the season each year and am excited it has come.
photo credit
3 comments:
I agree with Cboy, I don't think I could give up our Wii. Not play mySims for 40 days, i'd die *lol* I always say I am going to particpate in Lent but I never do. There are some things that I could definately sacrifice, like soda. That would be a big sacrifice for me.
i'm still trying to figure out what i'm giving up for Lent. last year i gave up tv and secular radio. the tv sacrifice was HARD.
I haven't given up anything for Lent in a long while. It just wasn't really practiced that much in my church.
On another note, I would like to contact you but cannot find an email address for you anywhere on either of your blogs. Will you please send me an email? I need to ask you a question.
Thanks!
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