Posted on 03/07/2007 4:24:40 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Back in the day when virtually every Catholic kid and teenager gave up meat on Fridays for Lent, there were always a couple of holier-than-Richie types who took it to the next level. They'd give up Dr Pepper. Or watching "Happy Days." Or listening to the soundtrack for "Saturday Night Fever."
Real sacrifices of the time.
These days, how much of a sacrifice is it to give up meat on Fridays? There are millions upon millions of Catholics who don't even eat meat anyway. For them, abstaining from burgers, pork chops and steaks is about as difficult as giving up cigarettes, olives and scotch would be for me.
(Olives! How can you people eat those things!? But that's a story for another time.)
Even if you love a good pulled-pork sandwich chased with a bratwurst and it's going to hurt to give them up, there are so many more non-meaty choices in 2007 than there were a few decades ago. Whether you're cooking at home, living in a restaurant-filled neighborhood in the city or cruising suburbia, you have access to literally hundreds of tasty meat-free dishes. Back in the meat-and-potatoes era, sushi was not an option for the average resident of Calumet City or Rogers Park or Back of the Yards.
If the idea is to sacrifice something as a way of identifying with the infinitely greater sacrifices made by Jesus -- and that basically is the idea -- then you should give up something that really matters, right? Something you'll truly miss during Lent.
Like Facebook.
I'll text you when it's over The Baltimore Sun reports that instead of abstaining from favorite junk foods, some high school and college students are giving up their techno-addictions for Lent. "Facebook fasting is the penance of choice for some college students this Lenten season, which ends April 8, Easter Sunday," says the story.
"Others have sworn off MySpace, AOL Instant Messenger and similar semi-addictive Internet outlets, all in the spirit of intensified religious devotion that precedes Easter."
OK, semi-addictive? I don't think so. There's no "semi" in these habits.
The article rightly notes that giving up something like Facebook for nearly six weeks is a pretty big deal.
"The site, where friends track birthdays, post pictures, check homework, monitor romances and generally gossip, has become the connective tissue of undergraduate life, and ignoring it from Ash Wednesday to Easter is no small sacrifice."
Let's put it this way. If you were to have made an equivalent sacrifice in, say, 1975, it would have meant attending class but avoiding the Student Union or other gathering places, never using the phone and basically cutting off all free-time contact with your friends and classmates.
It'd be like going into an isolation tank for 40 days and 40 nights.
Lent: It's not just for kids Not that techno-addictions are confined to adolescents and teenagers. It's funny when parents go on and on about how their kids are tethered to their cell phones and their instant messaging -- and these parents are telling these stories while constantly checking their Blackberrys and monitoring their cell phone messages, lest they miss whatever it is they're concerned about not missing. I just finished a bit of a traveling marathon, during which I took a dozen flights over a 35-day period. It used to be that you couldn't turn on your cell phone or PDA until you had exited the aircraft, but now you can activate your communication device when the plane lands -- so the moment the wheels touch ground, virtually every adult on the plane automatically reaches for the wireless communication device. You could choreograph it to music -- 150 grown-ups powering up their cell phones and PDAs in almost perfect unison.
Does everybody have a job or a family situation that requires one to be in communication with the outside world the moment a plane lands? My God, how did we survive in the olden days, when you had to wait to get off the plane to use your phone?
Lent me your ears Whether you're 12 or 22 or 66, if you're giving up something beyond meat for Lent this year, I'd like to hear your story. If you're giving up e-mail, please don't resort to the telephone -- just send me a letter.
That's l-e-t-t-e-r. If you don't know what it is, you can look it up on Wikipedia.
Unless you're giving up Wikipedia for Lent. In that case, ask someone over 25.
And by the way -- it's a sin to give up the Sun-Times for Lent. The pope told me.
mailto:rroeper@suntimes.com
I have to admit. Friday is date night and we always go out and I have been eating shrimp. No tuna salad on the Chili's menu. But it's what a friend of mine calls a God tap. It's stopping in our usual routine and remembering our Lord.
Fish sticks really ARE torture. I think they're the reason so many people grow up to dislike fish. :(
actually my kids don't mind the shrimp poppers which are mostly breading anyway, and they are light years better than the fishsticks. they won't eat real fish, which i did grow up to love. they have problems with the texture of it. i can do real shrimp for them, but they aren't wild about those either. i think Kung Pao shrimp from PFChangs would do the trick though! it is a real drag trying to eat out on Fridays in lent, and my husband will NOT eat seafood.
Nothing, Lent isn't in the bible.
I love fish and seafood of all descriptions, and fortunately got the "real thing" at home; fish sticks are mostly a bad memory from school lunches.
The one thing I couldn't quite face as a kid was lobster, and I remember my father trying to get me to eat in in a restaurant along with him - it was cheaper than the steak I preferred. That tells you what a LONG time ago this was. :)
i was talking to someone yesterday about Lent and she asked if i did the Sunday rule, meaning Sundays are a day off from the lenten sacrifice, i said NO, that's CHEATING, but i have heard people mention such a rule. i think it's bogus though and misses the point of lent. i have no problem going out and eating seafood, but my husband is an extremely picky eater and there would be nothing for him to eat out. i can't even begin to tell you how aberrant he is, he doesn't eat PIZZA [and he's italian...]
I think it matters, even if it's a "free" day. If you're trying to do a mental and physical discipline, looking for loopholes doesn't seem the best way to go about it.
I have had friends whose husbands are "picky eaters" like that, and the kids pick it up from dad; I hope you won't have a problem with that. I'm such a dedicated cook that I don't think I could have married a man who was a picky, non-adventurous eater! His parents obviously tolerated it when he was a kid. :[
i think the last time i ate lobster was when i was a kid and out with my family! i have no problem with it, but it isn't my fave so i wouldn't ever order it. i like salmon, tuna, swordfish, even some shark. i have offered my kids tastes of it and they will take a bite, but haven't really acquired a taste for it. they are not remotely as bad as their dad and i really can't complain as they eat a wide variety of things, generally. i fault my MIL [may she rest in peace] for coddling my husband and having him be so food-challenged. i swore my kids wouldn't be that way, and they aren't.
i thought shellfish weren't supposed to be consumed at all?
i totally agree with you on the parents. as i said, i lay this at the feet of my mother-in-law! and my kids eat chinese, mexican, italian etc. Things their father wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole!
Good for you! I certainly wasn't coddled; the rule in our house was that you had to have at least "a no-thank-you helping" (very small portion) of everything, so you'd at least try it. This even applied to my father, who loves raw vegetables in salads but has never loved them cooked.
The only thing I never had to eat as a child was organ meats, especially liver - my father hated those too, and mother couldn't make us BOTH eat them. She was outnumbered. :)
Didn't you get a clue when you were dating him that he was ..... "limited" gastronomically? :)
I gave up sugar and flour.
he has other redeeming qualities : ) and while i love to cook, i can do so for the kids and when we have people over for dinner. he realizes he is handicapped in this way. it was pretty funny when he was in Australia on business and the group went out to a Thai restaurant there. i have no idea what he moved around his plate for that meal!
a very common refrain from my brother and i, to my mom, when we were growing up, was "this is okay, but don't make it again, ok?"
Effing A.
I wanna see a picture of the stick fish that fish sticks come from.
The closest my father ever came to a criticism was, "Well, I wouldn't order it out...." and we generally didn't see that dish again anytime soon. :)
My husband is the opposite of a picky eater, and I'm glad. We're spending some time in Paris next month, and in THAT city I would certainly hate to see him push uneaten food around his plate....!
Oh God, i hope i don't get the one with the eyeball in it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.