The Lenten Struggle

We all deal with the Lenten Struggles - the fasting, the giving up, the extra little penances we assign ourselves, etc. Sometimes it includes the crazy looks or ridicule you get from someone because you actually DO something for Lent.

Me? Oh, I went all out this year. So much so that my wife asked if I was feeling alright, and my father called me back and said "Okay, now you'll have to explain to me what led you to this decision." My sons wonder if Dad's train has gone around the bend for the last time. A co-worker laughed and then stopped himself and said "Wait - you're serious?"

I gave up - wait for it - watching my beloved Washington Capitals hockey team. Now, some people might say "Big deal", but you have to understand that, in many cases, weekend chores, errands and family dinners out during the week are scheduled around Capitals games.

My thinking went like this - of all the things I like, what would be the hardest thing to go cold turkey on? Yep, watching the Capitals. Especially considering the fact that the playoffs start LOOONG before Lent is over, so I'll be missing quite a few playoff games. When the playoffs are on, nobody in the family better be kicking the bucket, or getting married, or scheduling a funeral, because a man has to have priorities.

So yes, maybe in the grand scale of things, it ain't much, but like the little drummer boy, I do what I can.

Here's to a fulfilling Lenten season!

Have yourself a Liberal Lent!

Catholic News Service has an article about one of those wack-job environmental (with an emphasis on the "mental" part) outfits and some of their kooky ideas. The unfortunate thing is, this is a "Catholic" environmental group and they're trying to turn Lent into some sort of Kumbaya hug a tree period.

In honor of their lamebrain ideas, I'm going to spend Lent using the incandescent lamps in my office even more than I usually do.

Have a laugh over at CNS:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100789.htm

Altered Ash Wednesday Prayers - you pick 'em!

A new set of Ash Wednesday recitations for those who just don't like the tired, old, standard "Remember, man...":
(This doesn't represent a complete list; all those with grievances/complaints/axes to grind can petition their local bishop to allow a recitation in keeping with their own worldview.)

The Guitar has always been incompatible with the Faith

In the Winter issue of Drawing Magazine, there's an article on the Spanish Masters, of which Francisco de Goya is counted. The drawing above is titled "A Nun Frightened by a Ghost", c. 1812–20 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Now, way back when this was produced, roughly 140 years before Vatican II, de Goya had no way of knowing what was down the road for the Church...or did he?

Either way, it's plainly obvious that the nun is more frightened by the guitar than she is by the musical directo- um, I mean ghost.

Should the Church throw her lot in with popular culture in order to gain "relevance"?

I've linked to an article by a religion writer for the Huffington Post. As you can imagine with anything from the HuffPo, it's decidedly anti-Church in it's outlook. The writer, a 23 year old who classifies himself as "...grew up Catholic" to avoid the impression that I would ever participate in such silliness...", puts forth the idea that if the Church could just get with the popular culture, his generation would find the Church on the way toward becoming "relevant".

I believe we've seen, since the 1960's, too many instances of the Church trying to be "relevant" to the popular culture. The effort to throw open the windows and let the World in has been a failure. Instead of evangelizing the world, the world and it's secular viewpoint has infected the Church, or more clearly, has infected the thinking of many inside the Church. We don't need a Church to "play down" to the popular culture, we need a Church to stand strong against it and call it out of it's darkness.

Pray that the Church continues on her road of Restoration, and that She resists the temptation to become "relevant" to the popular culture.

Read the article (and get a load of the comments)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tyler-mahoney/the-99-lost-sheep-20-some_b_823611.html#s240996&title=Fr_James_Martin

Missed Kiss

The March for Life is Monday, January 24.

http://www.marchforlife.org/

Bishop favor gun control? Who knew? (Everyone)

It's not a surprise that the USCCB would be in favor of banning all private gun ownership, considering that we're in a phase where pacifism is touted as the answer to evil in the world. One would think that they'd consider what's happened in England since private ownership of hanguns has been disallowed.

And of course, with the situation in Tucson, again, it's guns that kill people, not people that kill people.

Read about it (about halfway down) in the news brief from Catholic News Service :
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20110114.htm

And of course, the NCR (reporter, not Register), had an article about the Bishops and gun control:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/catholic-bishops-favor-gun-control-who-knows-it