According-To-Me.com

Lenten Confession...

Today (or rather yesterday, as Wednesday ceased to exist nearly two hours ago) is Ash Wednesday - the heralding of the beginning of the Lenten Season, a time for many to reflect and repent. I can remember my 8 years of Catholic School and the season of Lent - and looking back on it now, I laugh hysterically - not because I don't believe in what the true meaning and symbolism of Lent is, but because I sure didn't respect it back in those days...

I remember this one year on Ash Wednesday - I was probably in 4th or 5th grade at the time - some friends and I had gone to morning mass before school and received ashes on our heads. (We Catholic kids always thought we were special because we walked around with this stuff smudged on our heads and the publics didn't. (Well a few did, if their folks were devout Catholics.) Anyhow, this one year we decided we wanted to do it again, so we went into the girls bathroom, carefully but reverently washed the ash from our foreheads and then went to the mass after school and got ashes again. The one awkward moment was when we saw the same priest giving ashes that we had received them from in the morning. But given the crowd at that mass, an additional priest came out, illiciting a sigh of relief from us and providing us with an escape from our predicament.

Now - I don't know what I got spiritually from Ash Wednesday, if anything, back in those days. Maybe I wasn't meant to get anything from it yet. But it was just the first in a long line of rituals brought to me by this Lenten time.

If you're Catholic, you'll remember the very ritualistic "Stations of the Cross" that you were subjected to (well, if you were a Catholic school student you were) every Friday afternoon. In my early grade school years, I was very fidgety and unable to focus on what the priest and readers were saying. The only thing that connected for me was the songs, the familiar melodies and words that kept me conscious in the pew til the end. And how could we possibly forget the overbearing stench of the ritual incense being used during the process? Many a Lent it was warm on those Friday afternoons, and that overpowering incense caused more than one brave child to keel over in the pew. Years later as an adult participating in the Stations of the Cross in a community of my peers, I saw a small crack in the curtain of mystique that the Stations of the Cross had for me. For the first time I can actually connect with the life that seems to flow painfully through the crack in that curtain. It wasn't some secret thing I wasn't supposed to know or fear! There was (and still is) here for me a message - and I'll do whatever it takes to find it. I think I know what it is, but I want to just sit quietly with it, to just "be" and to "listen"... and wait for it to present itself. The last Stations of the Cross celebration I attended was with a group of my Diginity brothers and sisters in Los Angeles. I can remember getting set up for the event, and brother Michael and I were talking as the priest was preparing the censer (the metal bowl that holds the incense for use during the event). Not having any particular affinity for loud scents of any kind, I sarcastically said to Michael (not expecting him to have a response):"I wonder what kind of incense they will use today?" - and then Michael said:"It's probably that cheap Trappist shit again!". Then we looked at each other and laughed ourselves silly! There must have been some hidden meaning for Michael, though, as he is a former Trappist. Who knows? Maybe he didn't like the kind of incense they made? Somewhere in my head though, I suspect that the symbolic use of incense now is the result of something in the Bible... something I don't know about. But I will, one day.

The last of the best ritualistic practices done each Lent is the act of eating Fish on Fridays and all Holy Days in Lent. Early in grade school, I just knew that God was gonna be pissed, because I HATED fish with a passion, and no amount of ketchup on my fish sticks is going to make it taste any better. As I got older, of junior high age, I rebelled - I ate what I wanted to on Fridays... I did try to behave on the Holy Days, though. I just can't fathom Christ telling everyone that "thou shall eat fish on fridays during lent". I detect a growing skepticism here with the symbolism and ritualistic stuff within the Catholic Church. Ah, now I have probably sinned because I dare to question the validity and purpose of a tradition that appears more to intimidate more than it does anything positive. I finally quit that fish practice altogether - I don't need to eat fish one day a week to show a sign of my commitment to my God - HE KNOWS ALREADY! He can hear and see all that we are, and certainly my humble existence is no exception. I think for God, it is okay if I don't eat fish - and here I'm really, really laughing because HE KNOWS! It is a moment of joyful laughter, and just for this minute in time, everything stands still and I actually feel a sense that there is peace here. PEACE is HERE. And for the rest of the night (well, until I get to bed), I am going to just let this overwhelming desire to be as a child simply exist. I only need to remind myself that I don't have to eat the fish sticks that are in the freezer like some bad joke. The act of being a child, I think, is more pleasing to my Father than it would be should I struggle through my dislike of fish. Have you ever really watched a kid who is trying to figure out who God is? It is truly the most blessed time of growth in a Christian's life. It's done with innocence and gentleness, and an inquisitive soul that yearns for Truth. I want to do that... I want to BE that...