Tag Archives: lenten traditions

March 4, 2014 · 22:10

Lent is Here Again…Oh Joy…

lent

Lent is my least favorite season of the Church year. Try as I might, despite the catholic ethos that I acquired as a student in  a Southern Baptist Seminary, Clinical Pastoral Education and the military chaplaincy I have a hard time with it.

I think that part of the reason is I don’t think that I need to set aside a season of the year to acknowledge what a colossal screw up I am. Like George Constanza in Seinfeld I don’t need God, my mother or anyone else to remind me of my shortcomings. They are ever before me.

Despite that for years I tried to be the most observant observer of the outward traditions of the season. If we were to fast from meat on Fridays I would do it on Wednesdays too. As someone who came to the catholic side of life later in life I felt that I needed to out do those who had grown up that way. As a priest in a conservative Episcopal denomination with aspirations of eventually making the transition to Rome I did all that I could to take up the internal spiritual disciplines as well as the external forms of Catholicism. I did so good at it that I was banned from publishing by the Archbishop who headed our denomination’s communications department. The irony is that he is now a Priest in the Anglican Ordinate that is in communion with Rome. Go figure.

But that all came apart during and after my time in Iraq. Beset with chronic PTSD and moral injury faith itself became problematic. For all intents and purposes I existed as an agnostic who prayed that God still existed for nearly two years after I returned from Iraq. For me that fact that I returned to faith in any form was a miracle and when it did return I was told to find a new church home because now instead of being either too “Catholic” or “a Wounded Warrior Priest” I was now “too liberal.”

I would like to say that I am over it but obviously I am not, but I digress…

So this year Lent is again upon us. Tonight was Fat Tuesday, so I had a big burger, fries and a couple of beers for dinner at Gordon Biersch. Afterward I  picked up some fresh Krispy Kreme hot glazed donuts on the way home and washed them down with another beer. For those of you that don’t know there is little better than beer and hot fresh donuts. I discovered that in my darkest hours after Iraq. I think I even have a post that I wrote back in 2009 called Beer and Donuts. I’m not going to look for it now and give you the link but you can put “Beer and Donuts” in the search box on the home page and I am sure you will find it.

In my journey I am coming to realize that holiness is not simply a matter of out Phariseeing the Pharisees, or matters of external observance. I am coming to believe that Jesus really nailed it when he said that to fulfill the law was to love God and love your neighbor.

So my Lenten observance will be of two aspects. For the first time since 2010 I am going to give up something physical, the hamburger.I am going to go without a hamburger of any kind until Easter. When I break my Lenten fast it will be with a hamburger, or should I say a very non-Kosher cheeseburger.

That may not seem like much, but please hear me out. For those that  not know me when I eat a hamburger it is not simply to ingest something fast and filling, it is a ritual that is almost spiritual in its own right. You see I don’t eat crappy burgers. I eat fresh burgers of the best quality, cooked medium or medium rare. I prefer a toasted bun, fresh crisp lettuce, tomatoes and red onions and either Swiss or Gruyère cheese. I then need at least two to four ounces of dill pickles, a side of mayo, catchup and at least a half bottle of yellow mustard. It is a nearly religious ritual for me to enjoy a burger in this manner.  After all a eating a hamburger should be a spiritual experience.

Bh6mIhqCAAMTni9.jpg_largeThe Last Burger before Easter

As far as the spiritual dimension I am going to try to be a bit more conscious of my prayer life, more importantly my prayer for others who are in distress. I figure that God will take care of my needs and that when I pray it would be better that I concern myself with people who are in real danger, real need, real distress. Those who are the least, the lost and the lonely. Likewise I will endeavor to be more positive in all of my interactions. I am going to try to take the words of the immortal Sergeant Oddball (Donald Sutherland) of Kelly’s Heroes seriously.

“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”

Tomorrow I will celebrate a simple Ash Wednesday liturgy at our small chapel and the scripture readings will come out of Matthew Chapter Six where Jesus begins “beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…”

With that I will take my “Mario Mendoza Line ” self off line and begin working on yet another Gettysburg article.

Peace and blessings

Padre Steve+

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February 22, 2012 · 23:47

Spring Training and Lent 2012

“Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.” Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

The season of Lent invariably coincides with Spring Training, a fact that is not lost upon me. I love Spring Training and find that with each passing day I become more drawn into the beauty, grace and magic that is baseball.

However Lent is not my favorite time of year. It never has been especially when I slavishly attempted to pound myself into every jot and tittle that was lentenly imaginable.

Even when working really hard I was not very good at observing Lent. I could do the outward aspects such as abstaining from various foods or activities or adding more times of prayer but it was difficult.   Thus Lent was a ordeal to be endured rather than something to encourage the growth of grace in freedom.  The problem was that I was focused on the outward actions rather than the relationship with God or God’s people.

That being said I do find value in the outward disciplines of Lent. But sometimes I wonder if we as Christians in the West in our often nearly medieval practice of the outward forms of Lenten observation miss the grace that fills Lent in that it is all about the forgiveness of sins. The message of this is so well said by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

That is something that I endeavored to focus on last Lent and will do again this year. In a sense my observance of Lent is becoming like Spring Training. It is becoming a season to help bring discipline to my game and to hopefully through the grace of God do better in life as a Christian, Priest, husband and Chaplain and utility infielder.

Yes, as Schiller said “Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.” Who could not watch a perfectly executed double play and not think the same.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 10, 2011 · 01:38

Grace in Freedom: Lent 2011

“Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.” Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

“Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

My readers who have been with me the past couple of years know that Lent is probably, no wait definitely my least favorite part of the liturgical year. I think it is because the way that I saw it in the past. The problem was that I saw a long list of things not to do, or too do and that Lent was more about getting things “right” in terms of obligations, fasting, prayer, penance and trying to survive 40 days until Easter liberated me from the torture.

The last couple of years I have tried to make light of Lent writing about how to survive the season in rather humorous ways, or rather cynical ways as I struggled with PTSD, depression, abandonment and a loss of faith that for all practical purposes left me an agnostic. It was the only way that I knew how to deal with it because before Iraq my Lenten observances prior to Iraq, while genuine were torturous because I had missed the reason for the season. This year is different because my life is starting to come back into focus and faith after a long absence has returned.

This year I begin Lent in a new church. My readers know that last year I was tossed out of my old church by a corrupt bishop who later got destroyed his ministry and lost his office because of his own duplicitous nature and hubris. The charge was that I was too “liberal” and that I would be better I found a home with the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church, North American Old Catholic. I also was transferred to be the head of the Pastoral Care Department of a very busy Naval Hospital on a Marine Corps Base. Both the changes in church as well as the change in duty assignment have helped me.  I am more at peace and find work rewarding. I find that I am at peace in the ACOC a church where my Catholic faith and more “liberal” views are in sync and where I am not looking over my shoulder wondering if I will be censured or silenced as I had been in my previous church on a number of occasions.

While I still struggle with PTSD the effects are not as pronounced as they were even six months ago.  I made my first trip by air since my father died last June. Since returning from Iraq air travel, crowds, noise and light have often sent me into a complete panic and what I would describe as a PTSD “meltdown.”  While I still experienced some anxiety during the travel I was able to deal with it and had no panic induced meltdowns.  That was a major milestone for me and a sign that I am getting better.

So this year Lent and Ash Wednesday was different than either before Iraq when I was trying to faithfully observe the rituals but missed the bigger point and the time after Iraq where Lent made little sense because I didn’t even know if I believed in God.  This year my celebration of Lent, and I use the word celebrate rather than observe is grounded in the love, grace and mercy of God. Something clicked this year and I think it was in really understanding the words found in Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the 5th Chapter verses 17 through 21.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:17-21 NRSV emphasis mine)

What I have discovered in this is something that has changed is that middle part “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”

That has become liberating because I think I finally get what really means. It is about a God who of his own accord loves his creation; he loves real people in a real world including me.  Lent like all of the Gospel is about reconciliation between God, humanity and creation. Likewise it is also about reconciliation and forgiveness between people and even nations. It is about the Prince of Peace and less about external ritual.

I’m not saying that there is no value in observing spiritual disciplines such as fasting, abstinence or additional prayers or good works, but if they don’t lead us into a deeper relationship with God and help bring us into right relationship with others they really are worth nothing. I think that Jesus when talking about those that made sure that everyone saw the external aspects of their faith, or to better put it how holy they were, hit the nail on the head. In fact it was the Gospel lesson today in the Ash Wednesday Liturgy “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…” It is faith and the grace of God in Christ Jesus that is the only antidote to the sin that keeps us from living fully reconciled to God and our neighbor and for that matter the only things that can bring us to joy not trying to impress people with our piety.

I will be observing some of the Lenten disciplines this year but with a far different attitude and expectation in the past. I will seek to live the reconciled life both with God and those that I in relationship with and those that I come across. I realize that it is okay to be me and that I can be real and don’t have to try to be someone or something that I am not. It is to live in grace and freedom in right relationship to God, people and his creation. This Lent I will endeavor to live in that grace and freedom seeking to live the reconciled life.

God bless you during this Lenten Season.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 11, 2010 · 23:59

Padre Steve muses about Lenten Traditions and Spirituality…as Usual a Bit Differently than Others

Looks Like a Lot of Salad ahead for Padre Steve

As we know Lent is a time of penitence and fasting.  My little goof ball brain has wrestled with this ever since coming into a Catholic tradition back in the mid-1990s.  As someone who grew up pretty ecumenical and culturally Protestant it was a hard transition.  Getting to an Anglican and then more Anglo-Catholic theological viewpoint in seminary and the years following was easy.  “Head stuff” theology, Church History and other academic disciplines come very easy to me.  I live in that world and I love that world, even as a Chaplain in a major teaching medical center I find that I am deeply involved in academics, in this case health care ethics and the role of religion and spirituality in health care.

Developing spiritual disciplines have always been harder for me; however I have developed some over the years especially since I entered the Anglo-Catholic tradition.  I value the Daily Office and my spirituality centers around the Eucharist.  That being said I have struggled with the more aesthetic aspects of the spiritual life. I think that a major part of this is due to my early life in the Evangelical Protestant tradition.  These disciplines are not deeply imbedded in the evangelical tradition.  It is not that fasting is not found among Evangelicals, but it plays a different role and for most it is not a routine part of spiritual life for most.  In the churches I grew up in fasting or abstinence were both voluntary and for most not a part of church life.  There are exceptions to this. Some churches take on 40 days of fasting programs, but these are usually just another part of the churches program for a particular time and usually not continued on a regular basis.  So for me this did not come naturally and as a result I struggled with Lent and never looked forward to it.  I discussed this some in my previous essay.

Yet, fasting and abstinence can be very beneficial in developing spiritual disciplines, even for people like me.  I always try to ensure that I observe meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays.  When I was deployed on USS Hue City during Operation Enduring Freedom I had to deal with Lent. Every Friday evening the ship typically served “Surf and Turf.”  Since the “turf” was off the menu for me I had to deal with the “surf.”  To be sure I am not a big fan of fish or seafood in general.  However in the evening the “surf” was either Alaskan king crab or lobster.  So for that Lenten observance I had to suffer for Jesus as I made due with these awful delicacies.

Now I have struggled and still struggle at Lent, especially when I focus or become obsessed about what I am giving up, versus trying to use this time as a means to develop and my own spiritual disciplines.  When I get focused on the “what’s” of Lent and not the purpose for it I fail miserably.  Lent is often for me like spiritual New Year’s resolutions. To be honest I’m still working on these disciplines, I figure I will be doing so the rest of my life as old habits die hard.

My own journey in learning to “survive” Lent is to let go.  If things impede and frustrate me then I need to let go of them and focus on what will actually build me up spiritually.  Last year I decided to reduce the amount of time I spent watching all the talking heads on TV news and listening to the incessant drumbeat of talk radio.  When I did this I noticed a radical shift, I was not long spun up about all the apocalyptic invective on both the right and the left.  I began to be able to relax and actually let God’s grace begin to work in me, especially because of what I went through coming back from Iraq.  It worked so well that I never went back. Now I watch religious programming like Sports Center, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption and listen to Mike and Mike in the Morning and The Tony Mercurio Show on my local ESPN station FM 94.1.  Another thing that helped me was reading Andrew Greeley’s “Bishop Blackie Ryan” mystery novels which I started doing in Iraq.  They are so full of the grace of God and numerous times have touched my very soul. It is now easier, for the most part for me to see people of all religious and political viewpoints as people who God loves and not enemies of me or the unnamed political party to which I may or may not belong.

This year Lent should be better than last when I was still battling the demons of PTSD and was trying to climb out of that hole.  That did not happen during Lent last year but began to happen during Advent and Christmas.  This year I expect to celebrate Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday when I will conduct the “Protestant” Ash Wednesday service at the Medical Center where I work and also celebrate the season with the good people of Saint James Episcopal Church who during Lent of last year embraced me and helped me reconnect with Christian community.

Of course on Fat Tuesday I will celebrate with my friends in the Stein Club at Gordon Biersch.  I will have to bring donuts for everyone that night to have with our beer.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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