Count Your Days, Catholic-Style

As one of you pointed out to me yesterday, my showing of late in regard to this blog has been poor. I accept that criticism and even agree with it, and I hope to do better moving forward. I do have my excuses that no one wants to hear, though. It hasn't been a lack of things to write about. In fact, much to the contrary, I have thought of several things I wanted to write about, but I have failed to carve out the time. Hopefully, that won't be the case from here forward.

That preamble out of the way, let's get to it. I'm going to eschew some more obvious topics here. I'm not going to talk about my new job (which is just peachy, if quite busy), the NCAA tournament (which has been absolutely wacky and incredibly fun), or IU's quest for a new basketball coach (Kelvin Sampson??!!!). Instead, I'm going to talk about something I know very little about. That probably doesn't surprise you, as there are many, many topics on which I know very little. Still, I'm going to talk about Lent.

A couple of weekends ago, I made a trip with a bunch of guys to North Carolina. We rented a house in the Outer Banks for four days. The house itself was ridiculous. It had something like 10 bedrooms, 10 full + 3 half baths, 2 hot tubs, a view of the ocean, a pool table, a theater room, and TV's everywhere. It even had an elevator, which according to the note posted inside, is NOT a toy in which children should be allowed to play. Luckily, it said nothing about whether 30-something guys should be allowed to play in it. Anyway, the house was sweet. We went down for a four-day weekend to hang out, drink beer, play some bad and wind-battered golf, and watch a lot of basketball on TV (it being the first weekend of the NCAA Tourney and all). It was quite the good time.

That Friday, we decided to order pizza for dinner. I know, shocker, right? Anyway, as we were putting together the order, one guy claimed that we needed to get some pizzas with no meat on them. Naturally, I asked why, since pizza is SUPPOSED to have dead animals on it, especially if it's just a bunch of guys ordering. The response was that he couldn't eat meat on Friday during Lent. This inspired two responses in me. First, I took it as a point of information that Lent was started and ongoing. Second, it made me appreciate having a religion (or lack thereof) that allows me to eat what I want, when I want (even though this conflicts with the fact that my body that suggests that I never eat anything that tastes good).

Those responses were quickly interrupted by two other members of our group claiming that they (Catholics in general, not just these two guys -- I assume) were given a dispensation for that particular Friday. Why? Because it was St. Patrick's Day, of course. This claim was met with much skepticism, and there was much discussion of what source would be able to provide acceptable confirmation of the dispensation. Eventually, it fell on one of the claimants' mothers to confirm. In the end the Catholics among us ended up eating meat on their pizza.

I know you think that this story is just grand, but you're wondering who really gives a rip. And why am I thinking about it now? The reason is that it has come to my attention that many cardinals did allow the eating of meat on St. Patrick's Day, even though the article calls the special allowances indults, rather than dispensations. I'm thinking the guys in question wouldn't quibble about the terms, as long as they won't spend more time in Purgatory for eating meat that day (or whatever it would mean if they were wrong).

But the good news doesn't stop there, when it comes to Lent. Seriously! Those guys may have known all of the things mentioned in this article, but I had never heard it. Special attention should be paid to the last sentence. Apparently, Lenten fasting is not necessary on Sundays during Lent. This article would indicate that, much to the contrary, it is to be avoided on Sundays.

In fact, this post (from which I stole the links for my own post) points out the math involved in counting the 40 days of Lent. To save you the clicking or the reading, it only works out if you don't count the Sundays. So it sounds to me like you can splurge on the things you gave up for Lent on those Sundays. Kind of takes the teeth out of the giving up, huh?

I reckon it's sort of like paying taxes is for the rest of us. As a Catholic, you really should do the fasting/giving up thing for Lent, but it's not quite as bad as it seems if you know the ins and outs of the rules.