Sackcloth, ashes, the usual

Is that supposed to be funny? It's about as flat as the cardboard you propose to eat.

aaron,
While Lent is a solemn time, there is no need to be morose. One doesn't have to always give up something, one can take up something instead. My Bible reading has been slack for the past year, so I'm going to read scripture every day during Lent (with the idea that after 18 days something repeated becomes a habit. I suppose Jesus was critiquing those religious folks who announced loudly about how hard their fasting was, and boy, God sure should notice my hunger, etc.

>>>Posted by: aaron | February 6, 2008 8:37 AM

Heck, I'm still trying to figure out why the admonition against public prayer isn't followed.

There was a time when we fasted for Lent. We gave up all kinds of things. It was our custom to fast without eating at all from Holy Thursday to after Easter Vigil. Although we modified that a little because I went too far one year and was really pretty sick by Saturday night.

Then came a time a year or two after our little religious community kicked us out. I was working full time with three little kids, because Mr. Sig had gone back to school so he could get a job that would support his family over the long term. The circus was coming to town, and my employers were giving out cheap tickets. The only catch: the available performance was on Holy Thursday. “Oh, too bad,” I thought. “Of course we can’t go.” Yeah, we can’t go because we’ll be attending Mass and occasionally catching the eye of a fellow believer who isn’t talking to us now--although, if mistakenly sitting next to us, they’d be forced to give us a phony “kiss of peace.”

On second thought, I marched down to the office, picked up a whole wad of tickets, and took my kids and the neighbors’ kids to the circus. On Holy Thursday. We had a great time.

In later years, when our kids were in the house and we’d acquired a little more money, we’d developed a custom of having pizza on Fridays. During Lent, we’d skip the pizza and put the money in a beer stein that we kept in the middle of the table, and after Easter, send it to the Heifer Project. They have an awesome catalogue of farm animals, poultry and beehives that you can give to poor people to help make their lives better.

Now we still give to the Heifer Project, but we’ve declared a strike on fasting. There’s not much to give up that we haven’t already given up for health reasons, anyway: meat, candy, ice cream, white sugar, butter, etc. More to the point, we’ve decided that it’s Easter every day. The Bridegroom is with us. Why spend forty days pretending it hasn’t happened yet? Why not start living Easter NOW?

This year, we decided to read the Exultet every day.

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ our King is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O Earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes forever!

. . . . . . . . .

May that Morning Star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on us all . . . .

Maybe you misunderstand Mt. 6 (my favorite chapter in all the bible!). Jesus was giving strict prohibitions against false piety-- fasting grumblingly so everyone knows, praying loudly so everyone knows, disfiguring faces so everyone knows just how bad you've got it. But Catholics don't rub ashes on their foreheads for observation from the unashed, they do it as a reminder of their own mortality and as a reminder to the ashed that repentence is the only path to salvation.

Wearing a WWJD bracelet is taboo if the whole point is to show other people that you're a Christian. Wearing a WWJD bracelet is absolutly kosher if it's a reminder to the wearer to act as Jesus would have acted.

While we're on the subject, don't forget that when someone asks what Jesus would do, it's a viable response to freak out and flip over tables.

gjoe, that would only be a viable response if you were in church, or the church vestibule, at the time. ; )

I am putting down the I-pod and secular music, picking up some meditation tapes and more spiritual reading, and staying away from Cheez-its and french fries (believe me that hits me where I live ... well, er, nibble anyway).

Irenaeus, the Orthodox Church of Finland follows the Western calendar for Great Lent and Pascha. I don't know why.

Always interesting to see that certain people are more fundamentalist in their reading of certain passages than evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are and than Catholics and Orthodox to whom the Scriptures belong...

I'm also doing this, reading Church Fathers each day.

Mustard on cardboard for 40 days? More like 55, once you throw in Holy Week and whatever we call the week between Meatfare and Cheesefare!

But Catholics don't rub ashes on their foreheads for observation from the unashed, they do it as a reminder of their own mortality and as a reminder to the ashed that repentence is the only path to salvation.

Sorry don't buy it. I doubt the Catholic church picked this up from their Jewish roots, more likely a co-opted pagan tradition, so hence it does become a show-off ceremony, the apologetics for why came after. The incarnational argument of why the church allows graven images holds more water.

Oh, Aaron. I've provided an excerpt below from Catholic Update, a publication from St. Anthony Press by the Franciscan friars of Cincinnati.

*****

http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0204.asp

Ashes in the Bible

The origin of the custom of using ashes in religious ritual is lost in the mists of pre-history, but we find references to the practice in our own religious tradition in the Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah, for example, calls for repentance this way: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26).

The prophet Isaiah, on the other hand, critiques the use of sackcloth and ashes as inadequate to please God, but in the process he indicates that this practice was well-known in Israel: "Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: that a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?" (Is 58:5).

The prophet Daniel pleaded for God to rescue Israel with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of Israel's repentance: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Dn 9:3).

Perhaps the best known example of repentance in the Old Testament also involves sackcloth and ashes. When the prophet Jonah finally obeyed God's command and preached in the great city of Nineveh, his preaching was amazingly effective. Word of his message was carried to the king of Nineveh. "When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes" (Jon 3:6).

In the book of Judith, we find acts of repentance that specify that the ashes were put on people's heads: "And all the Israelite men, women and children who lived in Jerusalem prostrated themselves in front of the temple building, with ashes strewn on their heads, displaying their sackcloth covering before the Lord" (Jdt 4:11; see also 4:15 and 9:1).

Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1 Mc 3:47; see also 4:39).

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the use of sackcloth and ashes as signs of repentance: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes" (Mt 11:21, Lk 10:13).

Family meeting last night produced the following "FBC" Family Lenten 2008 practice: television "fast" Monday through Friday, and group charitable work each Saturday.

Looks like its going to be a lovely Lent in my house this year.

Just one lobster, that is.

I ate some leftover spaghetti with meat sauce and didn't go to church.

Good, Nate. Moderation is key. I sometimes eat my lobster on cardboard with mustard. But not good mustard, just the yellow French's stuff. And not good cardboard, either. Just the stuff that the beer comes in.

Hey, I'm not made of money.

While we're on the subject, don't forget that when someone asks what Jesus would do, it's a viable response to freak out and flip over tables.

Posted by: gjoe | February 6, 2008 11:06 AM

Oh, don't tempt me!! ;)