40 Days of AWESOME!

Lent starts this week beginning on Ash Wednesday. It goes for forty days…give or take three days at either the beginning or end of the season and Sundays…until Easter Sunday. Last year Lent was early and snuck up on everybody, this year it’s almost ridiculously late which means every Catholic in the world has had even more time to dread its approach.

Yes, I said dread. No matter what anybody says about Lent being a penitential season that prepares us for the celebration of our Lord’s Resurrection, everybody knows that Catholics nowadays look upon Lent as a miserable six and a half weeks that everybody can’t wait to be over so they can indulge in whatever thing-they-probably-shouldn’t-be-doing-anyway they gave up for Lent. I mean, Lent is tough, especially in WASP America. People look at you funny when you show up Wednesday morning with a black smudge that vaguely resembles a cross on your forehead. They think you’re strange when you order a fish filet instead of a Big Mac on Friday or insist on only cheese pizza. This is tough not necessarily because of the inherent superior deliciousness of red meat but because people hate standing out for being different.

Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of Lent we should look at as a great positive. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting, before starting His public ministry. He was tempted by Satan but He came out stronger and ready to do the work His Father had for Him. As Catholics, we should look at Lent not as something we have to do, but something we are invited to do, to share in the mission of the Lord by sharing in his wilderness experiences. He should use it as an opportunity to become stronger Catholics.

Now, if are those things have not convinced you to embrace Lent and any of you are thinking about jumping ship from the Bark of Peter so you can have a steak next Friday, I am going to be writing a new series of blogs along the lines of Forty Reasons Why Catholicism is AWESOME. There will be forty entries (one for each day of Lent) highlighting some aspect of the Catholic Faith that is well…amazing and well worth sticking around for.

I am praying that they will be entertaining as well as edifying and hopefully will help get us through Lent. Stay strong, brothers and sisters, together, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can make it through these next forty days!