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The Beginning follows the End
Christmass comes but once a year, they used to say. It doesn't, it comes twice. Whether you choose to end the celebration of the Birth of Our Lord on Twelfth Night, or at The Epiphany, or at Candlemas, those are always in the same year as the following Christmass Day. This year is completely topsy-turvy. A week after we have put away the crib at Candlemas we are plunged into Lent. One Wednesday in February we are singing the Nunc Dimittis and parading with candles, the following one we are sooted up with the ash of contrition.
Not that I mind Lent, even if it is extremely early. Being a Yorkshireman born and bred, with a strong streak of Scottish Calvinism, I am never more happy than when I am miserable. Luckily, I was brought up in that part of the County of Broad Acres which borders the Tees, where everything is said with tongue firmly in cheek, and having a sense of humour is a way of life, otherwise I would be unredeemably gloomy.
Lent is not six weeks of misery. As a Christian, I find Advent to be a pain, mainly because the secular world, and many of the churches, seem to want to ignore it and get on with the festivities. That leaves me feeling like a killjoy, which is as about as far from the truth as is possible. Lent has something that catches the popular imagination. Judging by the girth of some of the population of this country, fasting is not exactly a top attraction, but giving something up has its merits.
Unlike the Jews and Moslems, we Christians do not have communal fasts because we follow the instructions of Our Lord to do what we do, or more properly, to stop doing what we like to do, in secret. Fasting and abstinence are not things which we make a public spectacle of but I know, as a parish priest, that many of our congregation quietly put aside the little pleasures of this life for six weeks and feel all the better for it, both spiritually and physically.
Maybe, as winding people up is one of my personal peccadilloes, I should abstain from that for forty days. As habits of a lifetime are notoriously hard to break I would not recommend holding your breath, waiting for it to happen.
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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