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Chocolate Chip Cookies are Out
Two shops which I rarely visit when I am in town are Ann Summers, mainly because she never seems to have anything in my size, and that haven for chocoholics, Thorntons. On the rare occasions when I do venture into the latter, in search of a peace offering for the nearest and dearest, I have to hold my breath because the smell of cocoa based products nauseates me. Actually eating the stuff would have an emetic effect. Giving up chocolate for Lent would be no hardship to me, making me eat it would be the penance. I shall have to abstain from something else in order to mortify the flesh.
But is that all Lent is about? Is it really for torturing ourselves by giving up the things which we enjoy? In theory, we can, and sometimes have to, give up the pleasures of life at any time in the year.
The wonderful thing about this Penitential Season is that it is such a contrast to the let-it-all-hang-out attitude prevalent at Christmass. No bacchanalian feasts or stuffing ourselves with plum pudding, no stepping on the scales and not daring to look, no debilitating headaches. Unlike the excesses of what has reverted to the pagan feast of Midwinter, Lent remains quintessentially Christian.
And, outside the self-inflicted hardships, there is so much to look forward to. Within Lent there are all those special Sundays with their exciting observances; the singing of the Lent prose, simnel cake and posies of flowers on Mothering Sunday, and carlins on Passion Sunday. Then there is the Saturday afternoon when we try to remember how we make palm crosses, not to mention the day when father balances at the top of the ladder, attempting to veil the crucifix.
The secular world, which so commercialised our Christian celebration of the nativity, hasn't even begun to realise what Lent is all about. Although I did notice, in passing, now I come to think about it, that one of the shops that I never visit had some nice little penitential purple numbers in the window at this time last year. Perhaps they are learning. And, in case you are wondering, they were definitely not in my size!
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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