Mar 16 2008

You Are God; I Am Not

Category: General — Lindsay @ 10:50 pm

It’s spring break at UMD, so the CSC is short-handed. This is traditional. It’s also Holy Week. This does not usually happen during spring break. I managed to schedule one lector for each Mass, including myself at 7 p.m. I only go to the 7 when I have to, so I started out the evening with some bias.

That was my first mistake. God decided to humble me. (That’s what I get for asking for it.)

When I arrived at about 6:45, the chapel was mostly empty. Julie is away, so Hark came to cantor while Matt played piano. I caught Fr. Kyle between confessions and candle-lighting, and we agreed to go for the long form of Matthew’s Passion narrative for the Gospel. I was worried about my knee, but I knew the Holy Spirit and I would work it out like we usually do.

Moment of Humility #1: The whole neighborhood showed up for Mass. There were less than twenty students (maybe ten) in the entire congregation. My worry came back.

Moment of Humility #2: I read from Isaiah and the Letter to the Philippians with no trouble. I reminded the congregation to follow along in their hymnals to speak the crowd’s parts, and then I plunged into the Gospel. Without another lector, I had to read both the narrator and voice parts, which was tricky, but doable. (Contrast this with last Palm Sunday.) Around the halfway point, my knee got tired, but I asked God to help me not fall over, thereby making a scene. He humored me by strengthening my knee after I knelt on it during the pause for Christ’s death.

Moment of Humility #3: Father Kyle gave a nice, concise homily. It was only when he gave the introduction for the general intercessions that I remembered I was supposed to go back up to read them.

Moment of Humility #4: After the fraction and “Agnus Dei,” Father Kyle asked for an Extraordinary Minister to help distribute communion. No one moved. I’m not an EM, so I couldn’t help, and Maura got sick, so she had stayed home. After a tense moment, a guy I’ve never seen before came forward. He stood in the wrong position, so the progression of the lines was awkward, but we managed to get Jesus to everyone who wanted him.

Moment of Humility #5: After Mass, Fr. Kyle and I chatted while he straightened up, and then he walked me to the door. Only after I’d crossed the street did I realize I was still holding my hymnal.

It’s times like these when I pray, “Lord, thank you for reminding me that you are God, and I am not.”

Mar 16 2008

The “Meat on Fridays” Fight

Category: General — Lindsay @ 3:13 pm

It’s Lent (she says to the three people in the world who missed the last five weeks). That means that all Catholics ages fourteen and up have been obliged to abstain from meat every Friday. I stopped eating meat on all Fridays about two years ago. In the wealth of Catholic resources online, I discovered that, although the USCCB gave us permission to eat meat on Fridays outside of Lent, we were supposed to choose an alternate act of penance. I chose to just not eat meat, and have stuck by that decision ever since (excluding solemnities and the occasional major feast).

However, with every Lent come the traditional fights. How many days are there? Do Sundays “count”? And, is it really so bad to eat meat on Fridays of Lent?

Well, yes. Not because eating meat ought to be a crime (thanks, PETA), but because Christ gave the Church the authority to decide things like this. As with all sin, though, the situation isn’t cut-and-dry. Marcel at Aggie Catholics submitted a post to Catholic Carnival 162 about the objective and subjective natures of this issue.

If you have nothing to eat but meat on a Friday of Lent, you can eat it and not be in sin. Fr. Gurnee (former GWU chaplain) was building a Habitat house in North Carolina when a man offered his group home-barbecued spare ribs. You don’t reject a Southerner’s gift of free food. I once ate half a beef taco before I realized what I was doing. I kept eating it. My friend Joey accidentally got a chicken wrap for lunch last Friday. I advised him that wasting the food and money was worse than just eating it and taking up another penance (like the Stations of the Cross). Fr. Kyle gave the same advice just minutes later.

The penance is the point. At Real Life Rosary, James discussed fasting way back on the first Friday of Lent. Fasting is hard. Sometimes it’s really, really hard. But when we take on hardship and give forth charity and kindness despite our suffering, we give such glory to God. When we give up, we walk right into Satan’s outstretched arms. You can’t win the race unless you run so as to win.

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