1. It was bound to happen. We were talking tonight at supper about giving up FaceBook for Lent. My friend asked, "What's Lent?" Um. Well....
2. OMG...I have lived though 78 Lents, and it's easier to explain Groundhog's Day. I said I didn't know exactly, but I'd look it up. Somebody suggested it was a commemoration of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness before he began preaching. Nah, I don't think so--not entirely. 40 has always been a significant spiritual number. Moses spent 40 days in the Wilderness--something like that. And it rained 40 days and 40 nights before the great flood. Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. That's 46 days, but Sundays don't count.
3. Lent is a Teutonic word meaning springtime. Simple enough. It's a season in the church calendar during which people prepare for Easter by fasting and abstaining and doing good works.
4. When I was at St. Ben's, I heard a great apocryphal story about Lent and the Lenten fast. It seems there was a monk, who decided to test his willpower during Lent by hanging a sausage over his desk. He lasted until Good Friday, when his hunger drove him to eat the sausage, spoiling his challenge and breaking the firm church rule against eating meat on Lenten Fridays--Good Friday at that.
5. Doesn't pay to try to be holier than the Church.
Thanks for a couple of highly entertaining postings, ME. Elder Brother, the real birder in the family ID'd the hawk as a goshawk. Well...that would be in the USA. I'm not sure what they call a "sparrowhawk" in Scotland. Wonder how closely they are related?
ReplyDeleteLoved the "What's Lent?"
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