Lent According to Francis

 

Pope Francis has apparently issued his own suggestions for the Lenten fast. 

I had not heard these. I hear them now from my leftist friend Xerxes. 

Francis seems to be more popular among non-Catholics than Catholics. Within the church, he is far less liked than his two immediate predecessors, Benedict XV and John Paul II. He has stirred up much confusion and opposition.

Here are his recommendations:

• Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
• Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
• Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
• Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
• Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.
• Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
• Fast from bitterness and fill your heart with joy.
• Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.
• Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
• Fast from words and be silent so you can listen.

I do not like these suggestions. They do not involve giving up anything for Lent. 

You are always supposed to avoid hurting words. “Anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

You are always supposed to avoid anger and grudges; it is one of the seven deadly sins.

You are always supposed to hope; it is one of the theological virtues. Despair, as acedia, is one of the seven vices.

You are always supposed to pray; not just during Lent.

You are always supposed to be compassionate—that is the chief of virtues, charity.

On the other hand, there is no virtue, as Francis seems to claim, in being happy, nor vice in being sad. How cruel a thought is that? The Christian truth is the opposite. Jesus actually said, “Blessed are those who mourn.” The Pieta is one of the great expressions of Christian art. What is striking about the earliest Greek icons, in contrast to the pagan Greek art that came before, is the expression of grief on all the faces. And Jesus wept. No compassionate person can be happy as a rule.

There is no virtue in avoiding pressures. Did and do the Christian martyrs duck the fight? St. Paul said we are to “Work out [our] salvation in fear and trembling.” If you are avoiding pressures, you are taking the broad and easy high road to hell.

There is especially no virtue in being silent. This is a denial of the Holy Spirit and all the prophets. The duty is to evangelize. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men.” He said “Go forth and make disciples of all nations.” He declared John the Baptist, the “voice crying in the wilderness,” the greatest of saints, of all those born of woman.

Francis is all over the map, and one cannot tell where his thinking is coming from. It does not seem to be Catholic or even religious. It is perhaps from the Rotary Club. 

There is good reason for the traditional Lenten fast being from meat (and alcohol). Meat is a very tangible thing, and one is obviously either doing it or not doing it. Francis’s suggestions are just alibis for doing nothing for Lent, and actually seem to give permission to hold grudges, be selfish, and never pray the rest of the year.

Lenten Foods

A fun collection.

I have a bit of a problem during Lent. As a vegetarian, I've already given up meat year-round. So I used to give up alcohol for Lent. But now that I live in Saudi Arabia, I've given that up year-round too...

In other news, the press continues to misreport everything surrounding Benedict XVI's resignation. Fox News referred recently to the coming conclave having to worry about the church's "declining membership." In fact, the Catholic church is growing. It is growing faster than world population is growing. It is growing even in Europe.

The Daily Beast noted that the conclave, in choosing a new pope, would have to take into account the fact that two thirds of Catholics now live "in the Southern Hemisphere." I don't know of any source that breaks this down by hemisphere, but a quick glance at a  globe shows how absurd this is. This would be tantamount to saying that two thirds of Catholics live in the lower two thirds of South America and Australia. Most of Africa is in the Northern Hemisphere. So are two of the three largest Catholic countries, Mexico and the Philippines. See this map.

Pretzels

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Lent is upon us. And here’s an idea for a book someone should do: a Lenten cookbook, featuring and celebrating traditional recipes from across the Christian world. Even if Lenten observance per se is not as common as it once was, vegetarianism surely is, and they are about the same thing. And I do expect Lent to make a comeback as well; it’s time.

Did you know that the classic foods of many lands in fact began as Lenten foods? Consider the pretzel: the idea was to bake a bread without eggs or butter, both then prohibited during Lent as animal products. The classic design is supposed to represent two arms folded in prayer.

How about falafel, tabbouleh, hummus? Considered the ultimate Arab - Muslim foods, they in fact were adopted from pre-existing Christian cultures of the Hellenic Levant. They were, and still are, in Greece, Egypt and Lebanon, traditional Lenten foods.

From the Orthodox world: borscht, kasha, potato pirogues, cabbage rolls.

It all illustrates a wider point: the best foods in most cultures tend to be the ordinary foods of the poorest folk: pizza and pasta in Italy, German sausages, nasi goring in Indonesia, bibimbap (“rice with whatever”) in Korea.

This is because necessity is the mother of invention; because in this world the cream does not regularly rise to the top, and there are far more poor than rich cooks; and because, in the end, God is good. Being good, he has made all the best things as common and cheap as dandelions. Had we but ears to hear, and tongues to taste.

This, no doubt, is one of the lessons of Lent.