Everyday Lent

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March Fianza

It is a tradition particularly observed by Catholics and a number of Protestants in preparation for Easter. According to authorities representing different Christian churches, Lent is the time for fasting and repentance when participants eat sparingly or simply give up a particular food or habit.

It is a tradition that has transformed its original intention to things that are not even supposed to be done during the period. I do not know how people in other countries celebrate Lent. In the Philippines, people find it as the time to be reunited with their family and relatives in their hometowns.

Hence, we find bus stations too crowded, and roads to the provinces are jammed. Once the travelers reach their destinations, the merry-making begins and the holy week is forgotten. Fasting and sin repentance – gone.

Fasting or giving up a particular food and bad habit should be the best things that people can do today, but I sometimes find such acts very “unpleasing” especially when these are done to “please” God.

Over the centuries, the Lent has changed its value. The participants understand giving something up for Lent as a “way to gain blessing from God.” It has become a tradition in religion, just like going to church on Sunday, doing the sign of the crosswhen passing by a church, and so on and so forth.

By the way, I know many of us do not follow the tradition of going to church as what church leaders want us to do. But I also know that because we do not go to church does not mean that we do not communicate with God. I know of many who pray to their God not in church but everywhere.

I am not also certain if fasting and giving up bad things have any merit with God in terms of the “salvation” that present-day religion leaders talk about. Somewhere in the Good Book it says something like “in fasting, one should not look solemn as the hypocrites do…” And there is a line that goes something like “faces look sad to show men they are fasting…”

I remember, somewhere in the Bible, it says that “fasting and repentance should be done in a manner that does not attract attention to ourselves.” And there is also a part in the Bible that I interpret as a contradiction to the tradition of Ash Wednesday.

That contrasting line goes: “when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you…”

Instead, we line up in church to have our foreheads marked with ash. A few hours after that, we find ourselves drinking the night away in our favorite watering holes. But the more unique story was the one narrated to me by a friend.

He told me about his neighborhood where the women serve as barangay tanods, and that these women know that their little boys, along with other boys, are in trouble with the law because some of them have been identified by the police as members of akyat bahay gangs. The funny thing that irks my friend is that these women take turns in assisting the priest in alocal church by laying the host to the mouths and tongues of people receiving Holy Communion.

Like me, many go to church only when invited as ninong to a wedding or a baptism. But I believe that the Lent needs re-examining, its historic and religious origins, practices and customs, and its true meaning from its original intention as written in the Bible, not from the “traditions of men.

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with fasting and giving up sinful habits and practices. But these are better done “not for show” and not just for 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, but every day of the year.

On Ash Wednesday before the holy week, I did not meet any of my friends in media who had his or her forehead marked with ash. Not Mondax, Frank, Pakyay, Eli, Josef Z., nor Domcee. Newsmen do not celebrate holy week that way. I do not know if they celebrate at all or if they catch the attention of God with what they do during their lifetime.

But what I know is that God smiles on them and they all go to heaven when their spirits leave their physical body. Condolences to the family, relatives and friends of Dianne Garcia. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com