Lent

CanaTigers

CanaTigers

2,500+ Posts
OK, so what is everyone giving up for Lent this year? After some consideration I am abstaining from sex with Brazilian supermodels under the age of 25 and over 5' 8".
 
ditto...and candy/ sweets in general.

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I thought about vodka but realized there are too many big weekends during Lent for that. (St Patty's, we are having a crawfish boil, my friend's birthday, etc.) so I settled on fried foods. Which I never eat anyway except for tortilla chips at Mexican restaurants.
 
Usually I give up sobriety for Lent.

This year, I'm giving up religion. I figure it's the least I can do.

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For years I have given up Mexican food for Lent. This year I am giving up meat. I have been married for a few years now, and due to my wife's dietarian desires, I don't eat Mexican as much as I used to (which was bout 60 to 70% of my diet). I decided that meat would be very meaningful for me.
 
Giving up chocolate and say the F bomb. Can't give up drinking...too hard, and would have to disown my friends for 40 days. Can't even give up meat once a week...that's too damn hard too.
 
Nothing happened "on" Ash Wednesday. The 40 days thing is symbolically located in several parts of the Bible. Most notably Jesus' fasting in the wilderness.
 
There's a couple of liturgical devices and scriptures that back up the whole "ash" thing. Ashes were seen as a sign of repentance based on both Old Testament and New Testament ideas. It's all about being repentant in preparation for Jesus' death and resurrection.

Some Christian groups don't like it at all. I forget who it is but some denomination thinks that it goes against the whole "don't make your prayer/fasting public" stuff Jesus talked about. A smushy cross on your forehead doesn't seem very private.
 
For now i'm done with organized religion because of silly things like Lent that have nothing to do with my salvation. It's hokie ********, and I think if people really meant it, they would give up something without telling anyone but God.
 
St. Jesse Ventura invented the term "organized religion" and accused Christians who submit to a higher authority of being weak-minded. Unfortunately, Jess doesn't offer an intellectual or historic alternative. I respect those who follow his teachings, but to just help answer some questions from sincere posters who are not bigoted against Christiantiy, I hope this helps:

Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance. It is a season for reflection and taking stock. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. All churches that have a continuous history extending before AD 1500 observe Lent. The ancient church - Catholic Church - that wrote, collected, canonized, and propagated the New Testament also observed Lent, believing it to be a commandment from the apostles.

Lent is the Old English word for spring. In almost all other languages, Lent's name is a derivative of the Latin term quadragesima or "the forty days".
Catholics, and other Christians, get the biblical evidence for abstaining from eating meat Daniel 10: 1-3...... 'I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over'".

Does the earthly Church founded by Jesus Christ, and blessed with gift of infalibility in teachings of faith and morals (Matt. 28:18-20; Matt 16:18; John 14,15, and 16; 1 Tim 3:14-15; Acts 15:28), have the authority to establish days of fast and abstinance? Only if you believe scripture. Jesus told the leaders of his Church, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Matt.16:19, 18:18). The language of binding and loosing was (in part) a rabinnic way of referring to the ability to establish binding halakah or rules of conduct for the faith community. (See the Jewish Encyclopedia: "Binding and loosing (Hebrew, asar ve-hittir) . . . Rabinnical term for 'forbidding and permitting.'")It is especially appropriate that the references to binding and loosing occur in Matthew, the "Jewish Gospel."

The Jewish Encyclopedia continues: "The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees, says Josephus (Wars of the Jews 1:5:2), 'became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.' . . . The various schools had the power 'to bind and to loose'; that is, to forbid and to permit (Talmud: Chagigah 3b); and they could also bind any day by declaring it a fast day (Talmud: Ta'anit 12a). . . . This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age of the Sanhedrin, received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice (Sifra, Emor, 9; Talmud: Makkot 23b).

In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt. 16:19, 8:18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees who 'bind heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but will not move them with one of their fingers'; that is 'loose them,' as they have the power to do (Matt. 23:2-4). In the same sense, in]the second epistle of Clement to James II (Clementine Homilies, Introduction A.D. 221) Peter is represented as having appointed Clement as his successor, saying: 'I communicate to him the power of binding and loosing so that, with respect to everything which he shall ordain in the earth, it shall be decreed in the heavens; for he shall bind what ought to be bound and loose what ought to be loosed as knowing the rule of the Church'" (Jewish Encyclopedia 3:215).

Thus Jesus invested the leaders of this Church with the power of making halakah for the Christian community. This includes the setting of fast days (like Ash Wednesday).

Let me give an example - every family has the authority to establish particular family devotions for its members (or house rules, if you are not religious). If the parents decide that the family will engage in a particular devotion at a particular time (say, Bible reading after supper), it is a sin for the children to disobey and skip the devotion for no good reason. In the same way, the Church as the family of God has the authority, as given to Her by Christ Himself, to establish its own family devotion, and it is a sin for the members of the Church to disobey and skip the devotions for no good reason. Of course, if the person has a good reason the Church dispenses him.

Basically, during Lent we make small sacrifices to help us grow closer to Christ. Myself, I enjoy listening to sports talk radio in the mornings. I gave that up and have been listening to Mega Death - kidding. I've been listening to Catholic radio and praying in the mornings. Yes, its a very small sacrifice but it helps me grow spiritually. It is a historic and biblical practice to make sacrifices, but I guess I'm just weak-minded.

Sorry if I wrote too much and I don't intend to offend anyone, but I hope this helps explain a little of what some had questions about. Again, I respect your beliefs - please respect mine.
 
LC - great explanation. I seem to remember from my Comparative Religion course, that most organized religions have a fasting, repentance, contemplation period. So not that unusual.

In our family we try to give up one thing and also do one thing that will build character or serve others. Then try to carry that out past the Lenten season.

I have done chocolate for several years, until I did two years in a row without messing up. This year it is sweets between meals and dessert only once a week with the meal. The other part - I am trying to focus on being more proactive and/or positive with a few of my students. Not an easy thing this week.
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That being said - it looks like we all gave up Ponzi Scheme for Lent. Seems to be gone today.
 
I was going to give up "reading about Ponzi schemes", but I didn't think I was going to be able to go through with it.

But it looks like someone out there is helping me with my addiction.

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I honestly think that behind food and water, the internet would be the most difficult thing for me to give up for 40 days. But even that is doable.
 
Giving up sweets as well.

I actually tried giving up the internet two years ago. The idea being that I could use the internet if it was work related but everything else was out.

I last about two weeks...brutal.
 
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