Every Journey - Lent I

Image: Jon Tyson/Unsplash

Every journey starts with a first step. Here we are just past Quadragesima Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, reminding us of our forty-day Lenten trek of fervent prayer, fasting and almsgiving until Good Friday.

An unusual first step for me was to attend my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. No, I am not an alcoholic, but I was honoured to attend as a guest of someone who was receiving his 1-year medallion of sobriety.

AA Sobriety chips

Perhaps 30 people were in attendance announcing anywhere from several days up to 55 years of sobriety. The speaker of the evening recounted, with humour and tears, her downward spiral into addiction then her inspiring journey to sobriety. To say I was moved is a gross understatement. Her acknowledging of her current dependence on God (her higher power), her family of origin and her AA family was inspiring. To see that support in action over the evening will continue to be a blessing for me. To hold the hand of a stranger with 50 year sobriety as we prayed the Lord’s prayer was a gift. Prayer, almsgiving, and fasting were all elements of the meeting. The coffee was very welcome!

As we begin Lent, we often set goals for ourselves: giving up candy or cigarettes OR praying more OR not gossiping etc.  At AA I learned that to keep coming back is one key to success even when we misstep. Forty days is long!

Let’s share our journey and offer support to those we love and those who love us and maybe even those who don’t know but have wisdom we need to hear.

-Maureen Condon, CSJ Associate

Fat Tuesday

What is in a name? Mardi Gras (or in English, “Fat Tuesday”) has evolved in New Orleans far from the Christian roots of the French-speaking Acadians.  Expelled from New Brunswick by the British government, many Acadians settled in Louisiana where they maintained practices such as observing Mardi Gras. 

On the Tuesday preceding Lent fat was used up in preparing rich foods that would be prohibited during the forty-day penitential season beginning with Ash Wednesday on the following day. Lent is the forty-day period preceding Easter Sunday; it represents the forty-day fast of Jesus in the desert prior to beginning his public ministry and is observed by many Christian denominations.

Traditional practices include fasting, abstinence from meat, almsgiving, and sacrificing such pleasures as going to movies or consuming alcoholic beverages. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras has become a not-so-Christian event characterized by extravagant parades and celebrations. Mardi Gras is also known as Shrove Tuesday, the day on which Christians would confess and be “shriven” or released from the guilt of sins of the preceding year prior to the forty days of penitence and atonement.

In a recent conversation with friends, stories of family practices on the day preceding Lent were exchanged. A pancake supper in my family meant that my mother stood at the stove cooking and serving pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup. My seven siblings and I would press forks through the cooked dough in search of the tokens that supposedly predicted our future: A button indicated permanent bachelorhood; a dime foretold future wealth, and a ring signified marriage.  Another person described her ravenous brothers requiring their mother to toil endlessly producing the delicacies, which she despised, quickly enough to keep up with their demands and fill their hollow legs. A woman originally from England served her version of pancakes (thin crepes topped with lemon juice and icing sugar) to Canadians who snubbed them as inferior. A person from an Italian family had to develop the art of making thin crepes with a meat filling. Another member of the group informed us that she attends a pancake supper fundraiser at a church.

Do you have ways in which you mark the annual event of Mardi Gras, Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday?

-Sister Pat McKeon, csj

Shrove Tuesday - A Day of Forgiveness and pancakes!