The most important thing about Lent, of course, is Giving Something Up. If a heathen asks you, "What did you give up for Lent?", and you say, "Nothing", they're going to think: "These Christians don't take themselves seriously anymore".
Here are some suggestions on what to give up, along with the estimated spiritual points gained for each one.
Social media: ten points, if you are a heavy social media user. If you only share the occasional meme about cats once every few months, who are you kidding?
Coffee or tea: twenty points. This is saint-level heroic, but be aware of what St. Josemaria wrote: "Choose mortifications that don't mortify others." If you become Atilla the Hun without your coffee, maybe choose something else. And, for goodness sake, one or the other, not both. That's just stupid.
Chocolate: fifty points. I am privately of the opinion that if you give up chocolate for Lent you will go straight to Heaven should you meet your end before Easter. But this is a private theological opinion and not to be relied upon.
Television: OK, boomer. Twenty points.
Alcohol: Twenty points, but in order to keep your mortification secret you should drink your mineral water or 7-up from a whiskey flask. Look around furtively each time you take a sip.
Karaoke: Twenty points. God love you!
The news and current affairs: Thirty points. You might not have considered this, but consider it now. After six weeks, you might know less about Kanye West's latest adventures than the next guy, but you'll also be less depressed, anxious, resentful, confused, preoccupied with skin pigmentation, and full of suppressed rage towards straight white males or pink-haired social justice warriors.
Music: This is what I've done, several years in a row. Smart-alecks have suggested it's no great sacrifice, considering my taste in music. You could nuance this mortification: for instance, continue to listen to heavy rock but absolutely deny yourself the pleasures of air guitar or air drumming. Or continue listening to funk but don't let yourself tap your feet. Every infraction should involve a financial penalty. For St. Simon Stylites-level penance, listen to your favourite songs but always mute them once they hit the chorus.
Well, that's enough for mortifications. As every homilist and YouTuber is going to tell you this week, Lent is a positive, not a negative thing, it's about growing closer to God, and all that. Here are some positive devotional practices for the time of Lent.
1) Try reading the Bible. For cradle Catholics, this is a holy book composed of the Old and New Testament, to be found in most good bookshops, and even online. Since it's Lent, I suggest reading only these fun books: Leviticus, Numbers, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles.
2) Do the Stations of the Cross-- on one leg.
3) Ask the bore in your life about something that they find fascinating but you find impossibly dull. When they launch into a long discourse, smile and nod and ask questions. (But remember that you are the bore in somebody else's life, and if somebody does this to you, don't be offended.)
4) Do an hour's mental prayer every morning. This actually only takes five minutes in clock time. But it's five minutes that lasts an hour.
5) Perform the spiritual works of mercy. For instance, when a colleague mentions their "partner", you can ask: "By the way, are you married? Because otherwise, it's actually fornication." This is "rebuking the sinner" and may initiate a fascinating conversation on Christian sexual ethics. It might also land you in an even more fascinating conversation with HR. It's a risk. This blog accepts no liability either way.
6) Do some Lectio Divina. This is actually really trippy and happening. You read the Bible until you come to a passage that really, like, speaks to you, and then you repeat it over and over again like a mantra, going into an inner space where you're totally down with God. You can have a lava lamp and a trance playlist in the background if you like.
These are just some suggestions. There are many, many, many, many, many other guides to Lent. You could actually spend your whole Lenten season watching and reading them. This might be the biggest mortification of all.
(In case it wasn't obvious-- and if it wasn't, then you're really in trouble-- this is all a joke and not to be taken at all seriously. Apart from the bit about the chocolate.)
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ReplyDeleteChocolate, Twitter and escalators or lifts for me. How many points for that? But I draw the line at music — and certainly at karaoke, which, as Pope Francis himself has said in Evangelii Gaudium paragraph 164, 'needs to be the centre of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal'.
ReplyDeleteOh no, that's 'kerygma', isn't it.
DeleteI actually think he meant to write "karaoke" and the other thing was a typo-- after all, he is very keen on accompaniment!
DeleteI give you at least 140 points for all that. Escalators and lifts are a good idea, I might steal that one. A real "stairway to Heaven!".