My Lenten Offering

To most Catholics, the season of lent means giving up something for 40 days, and not eating meat on Fridays. Both are supposed to be in recognition of the sacrifices Christ made for us by dying on Good Friday.

I can understand the giving up something, but I've never been able to find anyone to explain the meat thing. A lot of Catholics eat fish. This I can't figure out. I've actually been told that we can't eat meat because Christ died for us and we should eat the flesh of an animal because of the suffering he endured. Um, hate to break this to you, but fish is flesh from an animal. Some people have said that Christ was a fisherman. Couple of arguements there. 1 - He was not a fisherman, he was most likely a carpenter like his father (before he took to wandering in the desert and preaching). Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John were fishermen, when Christ called them to follow him and taught them to be fishers of men. Just because he was in a boat once in a while doesn't make him a fisherman. No story shows him casting any nets. 2 - If he were a fisherman, shouldn't we honor him by not simply eating fish, which he would have spent his life trying to acquire.

If the whole "can't eat meat thing" is a supposed to be a sacrifice, I don't see it. At my house growing up, we usually ate cheese or mushroom pizza every Friday, cause we couldn't eat meat. You could imagine how upset we were.... And its not like we were the only ones in this situation because every pizza place in town was jammed every Friday.

I've had discussions with people I've worked with who said, they could not go to lunch at Burger King because it was Friday, and eating meat was against the rules of the church. I told him that so was living with your girlfriend, and not going to church on Sunday. The reponse I got was, "Well, the church has eased up on those."

I guess I'm going to hell. But probably for other stuff, not just for eating a Big Mac on Fridays.....