No, not sexual abstinence. Please, I’m Catholic and I didn’t even do that when I was supposed to. Which is why I went to Confession. A lot. But here’s what’s funny. Once there was a “commitment to marriage”, i.e. proposal and engagement ring, the penance for sex seemed to go away. I like to think I’m basically a good person, and my Confessions generally consisted of sex, missing Mass, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and lying.

I don’t think enough people confess to lying. And if you even try to front and say you never lie, you are, well, lying. Anyway, since Father knows me (and Jerrad) pretty well, I feel comfortable joking with him, even in the Confessional. So my first Confession after Jerrad and I got engaged, I notice the lighter penance and I’m all, “umm where’s the penance for the sex?” He says “just get out of here and go do your penance. Oh, yeah, and go forth and sin no more, I bless you in the name of…” and so on.

The abstinence I’m referring to is abstaining from meat on Fridays of Lent. I realize I should consider myself lucky since back in the day, it was every Friday, now it’s just during Lent. But now that we don’t have to do it every Friday, one gets out of the habit. Since I’m trying to eat better, last night I was packing my food for today and thought nothing of packing a piece of leftover roasted herb chicken pizza. Until just now when I took a bite of my pizza, got a mouthful of chicken, and realized I am going straight to hell. Well, maybe Purgatory.

Speaking of Purgatory, I will freely admit there are things about my faith I don’t completely grasp yet, since I’ve only been Catholic for 3 years. Purgatory is one of those things. I get that Catholics believe pretty much everyone starts there, and it’s a time of purification. But how does it work exactly? Is there like a ticker over your head telling you how much time you have left there? Do you get a number, and wait for it to be called, like when you go to the post office?

Indulgences are another thing I don’t quite get. It’s apparently something “extra” you do to decrease the time you spend in Purgatory. Back when Luther was all up in arms about the corruption in the Catholic Church, indulgences basically consisted of giving the Church money, and lots of it. That was bad. The Pope recently granted an indulgence regarding Our Lady of Lourdes. Apparently it involves “making a worthy Confession”, attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist, and praying in front of a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Immediately people started calling the Church trying to find out where there’s a shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes, because it has to be that specifically. Not Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Our Lady of Fatima. So, Father was running around on Monday trying to find out where we could get that particular image, and just do a shrine here on our property. So first I asked him exactly how much time off I would get, cause I want to know if it’s worth the effort. He said there wasn’t a good answer for that. hmmph. Then I told him he better find the right image, because if I get to Purgatory and find out I have to stay there longer because he used the wrong picture, I am going to be PISSED.

Back to Lent. It involves three parts, one of which is giving something up. This is usually a habit or behavior, like smoking, watching too much TV, or a specific thing like junk food or alcohol. One year I tried to give up alcohol. That did not go well. I think I lasted a week.

The general idea with Lent is to be somewhat private about what you’re doing and endure without complaining. I was not very good about that on Ash Wednesday. That’s where we get to abstain and fast. Fun. I must have said “I’m so hungry” 28 times that day.

Anyway, my mother-in-law was IM’ing with me on Ash Wednesday and asks me what I am giving up for Lent. *Sigh* Protestants. So I tell her, and she tells me she is giving up “poverty and thoughts of poverty”.

What I want to say:

“umm, that’s not a real thing. That’s like me saying I want to give up smoking crack” which for the record I don’t do. In case you were wondering.

What I actually say:

“Really?”

Then she goes on to talk about the Chinese New Year and how you are supposed to open all your doors and windows to let the positive energy in or some hippie shit like that.

“And you’re supposed to roll 9 oranges through your front door to symbolize money flowing into your home”

“oh, are you going to do that?”

long story about how she found organic oranges on sale (why is this important?) so she bought 8, because at the time she didn’t realize she needed 9, then Nicholas ate one, so now she only had 7, so she guessed she wouldn’t. As opposed to just saying “no”.

So despite the fact that Jerrad’s mom talks and talks and can take forever to tell a story, I genuinely enjoy communicating with her because it’s usually funny and entertaining. And I’m only making fun of her because I make fun of everyone, and if you are in my life, you will eventually end up in a blog.

Oh, and Jerrad’s response when I told him how I ate the chicken? “Well, if tuna can be the chicken of the sea, chicken should be able to be the tuna of the land, so I think you’re ok.”

Protestant. I’m not listening to him.

Tags: Being Catholic, Lent

This entry was posted by Cathy on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Being Catholic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.