Fat Tuesday and the Good of Created Things

( This post was originally published on Peace and Pekoe on February 28, 2017)

It says something interesting about Catholic culture that Pancake Tuesday and Shrove Tuesday sit comfortably alongside each other as alternate names for the same day. Indulgence and confession, enjoyment and penitence, on a single day of the calendar.

“Shrove” and “Shrivetide” refer to the practice of using the time immediately before Lent to examine one’s conscience and attend confession. In Catholic England (carrying over into Anglican England), the Shrive bells would chime in the village church to both call penitents to confession–and remind housewives and cooks to begin making pancakes to use up rich pantry staples before the fast of Ash Wednesday.

Moderns are perhaps not so keen on making it to confession these days in particular, though my own parish held a penitential service the Sunday evening before the beginning of Lent. Observant modern Catholics often use the solemn atmosphere of the forty days of Lent to search their souls and find time to make it to confession. (Though this may be in part because scheduling confession is a challenge in most modern parishes, but that’s a rant for another time. Seriously, can we have more than one time slot a week?)

That said, my Facebook feed has been filled with two kinds of posts that give evidence that the dual nature of the days before Lent remains. Alongside discussions of recipes for King Cake, pazckis, and plans for indulgent Fat Tuesday dinners and desserts I find thoughtful reflection about Lenten observances, the pros and cons of different kinds of sacrifices, intentions of adding devotional acts or sacrificing daily pleasures, large or small.

To the non-Catholic, it must look vaguely schizophrenic. If we think worldly things are so dangerous or sinful that we need to give them up for forty days to prepare for Easter, why not give them up year-long? Or if rich foods bring us so much joy and gratitude for God’s gifts, then why give them up at all? How does that bring us closer to God?

But Catholics, as Mark Shea is fond of observing, are a both/and people.

I saw someone explain yesterday that we are supposed to give up something we love for Lent, to show God that we love him more. This is well and good, but there’s more at play than that, I think, and the nature of our Lenten observances can change a lot from year to year. But the writer was right that there is something especially meaningful about freely giving up something that is objectively good. Lent is a good time to work on our vices and make a special effort to break bad habits, but there’s something more at work when we freely embrace a good, non-sinful enjoyment on Fat Tuesday, then freely step away from it on Ash Wednesday.

I believe God wants us to rejoice in the good things He has given us here on Earth. But I also believe He wants to give us even greater goods than these earthly ones. Fat Tuesday gives God the glory for all He has created. Ash Wednesday gives Him glory for all He still wants to pour into us. We set aside good things so that we can have our emptiness filled with the Maker of Good Things.

So eat up, everybody! Celebrate! Tomorrow, we fast.

 

Image credit Dana Moos via Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/dana_moos/5229952935

A Lent of Tiny Thorns

(Originally posted at The Personalist Project in February 2017)

All our life is sown with tiny thorns that produce in our hearts a thousand involuntary movements of hatred, envy, fear, impatience, a thousand little fleeting disappointments, a thousand slight worries, a thousand disturbances that momentarily alter our peace of soul. For example, a word escapes that should not have been spoken. Or someone utters another that offends us. A child inconveniences you. A bore stops you. You don’t like the weather. Your work is not going according to plan. A piece of furniture is broken. A dress is torn. I know that these are not occasions for practicing very heroic virtue. But they would definitely be enough to acquire it if we really wished to.
—Saint Claude la Colombiére

Lent is fast approaching, and with it comes discussion of the merits or lack thereof of undertaking Lenten sacrifices or extra devotions and other forms of discipline. I explained to my five year old daughter last night that we won't be having sweets or desserts during Lent because Lent is a time for being sorry for our sins and getting ready for Easter. Afterwards, I realised that my explanation still didn't make a very clear connection between giving up desserts and getting ready for Easter. Since many adults don't seem to quite understand the connection either, it seems worth further thought. 

There's really two things at play here: the question of the value of small actions--personal fasts and devotions--and the question of connecting these in a particular way to the season of Lent and preparation for Easter. In this post, I'd like to address the former. 

Why do small actions and choices matter? 

What is the use of giving up something like dessert? Dessert is not an immoral thing under most circumstances, and moderate enjoyment of physical pleasures can help us to be contented and pleasant to the people around us. Self-denial does not obviously or directly make us more loving or kind or generous to others, so what IS the point? 

But perhaps that is the point. Self-denial takes away some of the comfortable props we lean on to help us feel well-disposed towards the world. Not all of them--and I don't recommend looking for a Lenten discipline that will leave you thoroughly irritable and out of sorts with everyone around you!--but removing just one or two small buffers can test our charity and goodwill in a real, though small way. 

Perhaps that glass of wine at dinner gives the world just enough comfortable glow to make it easy to resist micro-managing how your children do their evening chores. Maybe you're in the habit of popping into the pantry for a square of chocolate whenever your spouse repeats some soundbite that makes you want to roll your eyes. Perhaps you shop online when your busy schedule leaves you feeling frayed, and looking forward to the resulting packages in the mail helps you face your workday cheerfully. 

None of these things are bad in themselves, and as you can see, they can all be used in ways that help us live full and good lives. 

However, there is more to virtue than arranging our lives so that they are full of comforting rewards and distractions from temptations to anger or sin. Our small challenges can, as St. Claude reminded us, be the means by which we acquire heroic virtue, even if there is nothing especially heroic in the moment about biting your tongue against a sarcastic reply to a coworker or quelling your impatience when returning a small child to bed for the umpteenth time. 

The choices we make when we encounter life's tiny thorns are important because they are the means by which we form our characters. To use psychological language, these choices help to mold our affective responses, to change our first, interior responses to temptation. 

It's an important lesson, a protection against scrupulosity, to know that we are not responsible in the moment for an involuntary affective response. The flash of anger at being interrupted that I experience when one of my children barges into my office while I'm writing isn't virtuous, but neither is it sinful. It simply is. What I choose to do with that feeling, whether I act on it or let it drain away, can be a moral choice, but the initial feeling wasn't chosen and I am not culpable for it. 

On the other hand, to say we are not culpable for our affective responses isn't to say that we have no part to play or responsibility for shaping and training our affective responses over the long term, and how we face the small temptations and aggravations of life has a lot to do with what kind of person we become. 

The practice of a Lenten discipline isn't about rejecting the good gifts of Creation. There's nothing innately bad about good food or entertainment or diversions. But choosing to set them aside for a time allows us to test our characters and see who we are becoming.

My middle child is taking a short water safety course that is designed to teach children how to survive if stranded in deep water by a boating accident or mistake in judgement. The program is called "Swim to Survive" and, although the intention is to get the children to where they would be able to swim to shore or stay alive for hours in the water under difficult conditions, obviously the instructors don't teach survival skills by dumping a bunch of 9-year-olds in the middle of a lake to sink or swim.

Instead, they teach them pieces of the skills they need, using repetition to grind survival skills into their heads. They practice heat-preserving flotation techniques in and out of life-jackets while in shallow water. They practice treading water near the dock. They have the children swim short distances at first, and then longer ones, zeroing in on reducing the kinds of bad habits that will prematurely tire a swimmer, like splashing feet and arms out of the water.

None of those children is doing anything extraordinary during any 30 minute session. But by setting aside their flotation devices and water toys for a time, they may acquire responses and skills to survive in an extraordinary circumstance sometime in the future. 

By setting aside some of the small material comforts that make life easier and more pleasant for a time and leaning instead on God's graces, may we also acquire heroic virtue against any extraordinary challenges the future might hold.

Image Credit Petr Kratochvil, via publicdomainpictures.net