Theoretical question: since "traditionally, people have fasted by eliminating luxury items from their diets, such as meats," but currently luxury items in my diet are fish, not meat, does that mean that I should skip fish instead of meat this lent? Fish costs twice or thrice as much as meat.
Since fish is no longer the poor man's food, doesn't that defeat the purpose of fasting altogether?
When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
—Matthew 6:16-18, NIV
See, when I eat fish I consider it to be awesome, a treat, come on, salmon, swordfish, smoked bream--why would the unseen Father reward me for treating myself on Fridays, the day of the crucifixion? Besides the joy of eating it, I'm afraid I'd also be taking joy in being a good Christian, which is the sin of pride. So is it worth it? Man, I gotta start making it to church more often.
I guess until I figure this all out I'll compromise and do fish for lent but only on Fridays. Fish every day doesn't make it into my budget anyway.
5 comments:
in the states the rule is fish on fridays, the rest of the week is normal. they can't really be saying no meat during all of lent in lithuania.
when i was a boy, the rule was no meat on friday all year long. that made it easy to spot the catholics in the public schools.
the fact that they changed the meatless fridays rules to limit it to lent is one of my core justifications for making up my own rules about being catholic.
traditionally you're supposed to fast, e.g. limit your diet to vegetarianism, for all of lent the way jesus went out to the wilderness for 40 days. i don't know if anybody does that these days; but it's not necessarily too hard to fast in an individual way. from what i've read today, you can do it any way you like, such as you can eat anything you want, but you can only drink water. liepa's personal fast would be no cheese, lokys' would be no ham, but other meats are okay. that way fasting doesn't defeat its purpose.
nobody in lithuania told me anything about it, i just remembered myself today. i've been meaning to start meatless fridays for a while. i would try doing the whole lent meatless if my wife wasn't pregnant; they need meat. maybe i'll do meatless lunches--that won't be a treat, since only the herring is good at work, the other fish is fatacular.
can i give up something i don't do now anyway? ;)
also, i haven't eaten much cheese in south carolina. probably because i haven't had much beer or wine, which are vehicles for cheese.
why don't you drive your anti-cheese vehicle to an island called "lost," where you have to drink every time jack gets into a fight with sawyer, and drink twice whenever somebody else gets into a fight? cause it sounds like south caroline sucks chicken cheese chodes.
I thought you were just supposed to give up something you liked? Shows how much I remember
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