Ash Wednesday

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for Christians in the West. Many of us will give up sweets or video games or online shopping. Some intrepid souls will even give up coffee. I tried that last year, but my priest reminded me that my wife didn’t choose “dealing with a crabby husband” as her penance, so I found another penance. It’s a little different for our brothers in the East. Their season of fasting begins on Meatfare Sunday and ends on Pascha (Easter). They’ll give up meat… then dairy… then fish…then wine... then oil. They’ll go from eating three meals to two, and then from two to one — and their one meal is basically just a peanut butter sandwich and carrot sticks. The most devout won’t eat at all from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday.

Deep in the gloomy last days of winter, Ash Wednesday once again descends upon us. Dutiful Catholics worldwide, soaked with enough sugar and spirits from Mardi Gras to last forty days and forty nights, will drag themselves to church to have their hungover heads smudged with ashes and be reminded that “You are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Ah, Lent. As a Catholic myself, this time of year always fills me with mixed emotions, sort of like going to the gym: I know it’s good for me, I know I’ll feel better afterward, but the Good Lord knows I’m no saint…let’s get on with it already! Lent is a season that bewilders a lot of non-Catholics. Fasting? Abstaining from meat? Almsgiving? It's 2022, guys.