LENTEN EXPLAINER

“Fr. Murphy, What’s Lent?”

Children, Lent is the physical manifestation of God wanting us to enjoy ourselves -but not too much.

During the 6 days of creation – He took a spa day on day 7 – on the odd days He gave us pleasure. On the even days, pain.

He gave us lust for life – and the 10 Commandments.

He gave us red meat and baked goods – and heart disease.

He gave us the ocean and beach days – and sunburn and skin cancer.

He gave us all types of pleasure, but each with a corresponding counterweight of pain – an essential part of His design.

Pain a constant, forcing us to “watch our step” – in fact, He made regular/recurring pain a reminder that pleasure comes with a price: He gave women monthly menstruation, He gave men women.

And while the ultimate pain of hell a drag, the good news: Casual Fridays.

But if you need a daily reminder that you’d better behave, He created The Nuns, who have interesting ways to balance pain with pleasure.

But Lent ain’t what it used to be, boys and girls.

It started as ‘100 days of Suffering’, everyone required to give up their favorite things, black fast at dinner time – meaning no meat, daily self-flagellation – streaming ‘The Barbie Movie’ on repeat later added.

But the name offputting – later changed to ‘100 days of non-pleasure’, which didn’t seem to work either.

Obviously, Catholics weren’t too thrilled – they wanted meat, not filet-o-fish or egg salad – and Lent an afternoon in length. But they kind of dug the self-flagellation…

And when the Pope added tariffs on Italian handbags, they revolted. Via rosary, of course.

The compromise negotiated after attending Burning Man reduced the timing to 40 days, with only Fridays reserved as meatless, and Good Friday as black fast.

And they needed to give up just one of their favorite things or do some self-improvement thing, which sounded a lot like New Years Resolutions, and we all know how those turn out.

St. Patrick’s Day partying an issue, so the Church invented dispensations – a day off from the rules.

Which is how they dealt with tariffs – now scheduled to start ‘next month’.

Lent timing moved to March/April at Martin Luther’s insistence – “Balancing spring’s beauty with a dollop of suffering” – that guy was so hung up on that dollop of suffering thing.

The 40-day thing worked for a while, but Kids Today! (would shake fist angrily, but gave that up for Lent) are too soft for sacrifice!

We were much tougher, more willing to sacrifice – and without I-phones had a lot of spare time on our hands.

Would you believe our Churches only had 4 Stations of the Cross – we just got to the part where Christ was choosing the wood or aluminum cross – and with cable, today’s Churches have over 350 Stations?

So, you soft little sinners – what will you give up for Lent?

While I will be giving up socials with The Nuns, alcohol – or only using red solo cups, and hearing Confessions – what’s wrong with people?, I recommend you stop stealing that Lutheran kid’s lunch money, reduce your screen time to 8 hours or less per day, and anything including the word sin. Oh, and self-flagellation.

Choose your Lenten sacrifices wisely, or you could be ground into ashes like that kid you all thought ‘moved away’.

And that’s Lent.

Yes, Timmy –

“So, Lent is how God, and our parents, operate? It feels like a harsh punishment, a ‘Heavenly Time Out’ – like He’s really mad at us – but it’s actually for our own good?”

BUY THE BOOK! Beers at the Nifty 2024 still available on Amazon. Order today, make me – and yourself – happy!

For 284 more posts like this –each with a wish to flagellate privately– go to beersatthenifty.com. Your phone will display every post, and you can waste an hour or two.

ENHANCE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS POST, PAIR IT WITH THE FOLLOWING ‘AGING HIPSTER MUSIC’:

Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive By Truckers,  has a new CD with The 400 Unit, which is good. Give it a listen. I’ve added ‘Cumberland Gap’ ‘If we were Vampires’  and ‘The Life you chose’ with the line “Are you living the life you chose, or the life that chose you?”.