Tonight was Ash Wednesday, and part of the message asked about the discipline of denying ourselves things that aren't good for us, now that we can have everything.
Yes. One learns one kind of discipline by enduring being deprived of things by circumstances or others. That has been most of human history, of making our way when we can't have what we want. It is a different type of discipline to deny ourselves something because it is not good for us, or even just to practice not having things. Few practice fasting anymore. I keep meaning to, but only manage it irregularly. Not disciplined enough, clearly.
Do you guys have a different Ash Wednesday? The Catholic one was last week.
ReplyDeleteThat is a sore topic with me. Our church moved the celebration to this week because of school vacation week. This appalled me. We went to Ash Wednesday last week at the Episcopal church, because I was sure they'd at least get the date right. Then we went to our own this week. I didn't have ashes imposed the second time. It just seemed wrong.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see. I know some denominations differ on the date of Easter, so I thought maybe you had a different notion of when to start Lent.
ReplyDeleteOrthodox Easter is one week latter most years, though not all. With Romanian children we were more aware of that for a few years, though their picture was mixed. They had been at a Baptist orphanage, and the Baptists were persecuted badly by the Orthodox under Ceaucescu. Romanian Baptists were divided about when to celebrate Easter. In Transylvania, they tended to stick with the Protestant (and almost irrelevantly, Catholic) choice of dates because there were enough Hungarian Reformed churches that they had some cultural support.
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