Marie wrote on Mar 10
th, 2006 at 11:45am:
Pat & I were talking a little bit about this last night. What are your beliefs about it, if any? Should it be observed, and how? Is it limited to specific denominations? What Scriptures justify its practice?
Lent and it's associated tag-along holidays (Mardis Gras/Fat Tuesday) are ridiculous and completely irrelevant.
The problems with the concept of Lent are many-fold. It's a tradition started by the Catholic church that partially survived the Protestant Reformation and is carried on in both the Catholic church and certain protestant denominations. I'm neither Catholic nor Catholic-derived, so the holiday doesn't really apply to me.
Quote:Matthew 6:16 - Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
The problem with Lent is that it's observers completely misunderstand the basic premis of fasting. Fasting is
good. However, it has to be done for the right reasons and with the right mindset. If you are fasting "because the Pope told me to" or "because it's what everyone else is doing" or "because the calendar says it's that time of year,"
you're doing it for the wrong reason.Fasting is a highly personal experience with God. It's something that
nobody needs to know about. Not your spouse, not your parents, not your best friends, and certainly not the Pope. It's a personal commitment to God to forsake a significant factor in your life for the benefit of gaining a closer relationship with God. It's a time of purging sinful tendencies from your life to attain a more intimate walk with the Creator. None of this needs to be public knowledge, and it's certainly not the kind of thing you can plop on a calendar.
People that walk around saying "Hey, I'm fasting" are doing exactly what Jesus warned against in the verse above. They're doing it for themselves. They aren't fasting for the rewards they'll get in heaven, but rather for the rewards they get immediately by having other people think they're pious and upstanding.
Nowhere in the New Testament will you ever find an apostolic (or Christ-given) exhortation to support an "annual" fast of any kind. According to the Catholics, in 461 AD St. leo told his parishioners to abstain so they could "fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of the forty days."
I'll start observing Lent as soon as someone can point out an apostle that even
mentions a fast that satisfies the following conditions:
1) Mandatory.
2) Follows a strict schedule.
3) Applies to all members of all churches.
4) Specifically declares what can and cannot be eaten.
If any of you can find that, and I'll stop eating meat this very instant. I've got two beautiful steaks in the refrigerator right now that are just begging to be cooked, so I don't make this claim lightly.
I wouldn't have any problem with the Catholic concept of Lent if they didn't rabidly lie about its origins. The fact the Papacy has to push such outright fallacies to cover up the source of this corrupt exercise is what's really irksome.
Irksome. I like that word. I think I'll use it more often.
-b0b
(...mmm, steaks!)