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Wow. I hadn't realized just how heavy that wooden cross really is! The one that we stick deep into the ground out in front of our church from Ash Wednesday through the last day of Eastertide. The plain wooden cross that we drape in penitential purple throughout the Lenten season, passion red in Holy Week, and pure pristine white from Easter Day throughout the Eastertide season.
After receiving ashes this morning as Mass, I offered to help carry the Cross from the rear garage (behind the church building and the Rectory building) across the width of our parking lot, to the front lawn. Two men and two women - and still it wasn't lightweight! Nope. Not at all. My spine is killing me this afternoon!
(and it would have been even heavier for the other three persons if I hadn't offered to help out - wow)
I never really gave that old wooden Cross any thought before. It's just always been out there each year. But I never gave much though to how it got out there and set in place. Today, I found out exactly how that happens... Some of our Knights of Columbus carry it out there and set it up. But this year, we lost one Knight who just passed away two weeks ago... and one is hospitalized right now... and another was unable to come early this morning - only later this afternoon... so we had two left who were here at the 7:00am Mass. So they, and a wife, decided to do it. I was awaiting my ride home from a K of C from a different church (Mr Witchy has no car and is using mine, leaving me without a car, so I've been stranded at home lately.), so I was the last person left from the first Mass of the day... so I saw them three of them struggling. What was I to do? So I pitched in. Never mind my broken spine. I know that God won't let my spine break further carrying His Cross - and He didn't. Yeah, I hurt... so I give my suffering up as my sacrifice today for the sake of the souls in purgatory, that their stay in purgatory might be shortened a bit. That's the point of 'sacrifice', isn't it? (and nothing says I can't take an extra Tramacet or two & an extra Carisoprodol, with my doctor's permission, while suffering and giving up my pain as my sacrifice) Dear Lord, but that big wooden Cross was heavy!!
So, while I ponder the Lenten season, and what I am going to give up for Lent, and what I am going to add to my prayer routine and to my discipline (besides the annual Archdiocesan Rice Bowl thing) for Lent... I have an entirely new view of the season and the upcoming Passion of Our Lord.
It's a Day of Fast and a Day of Abstinence.
So... only enough food to equal two small meals with no snacks in between. (Fast)
Fish. No meat or meat products. (Abstinence)
Because it's a Lenten meal, it also must be simple and show some privation.
Whole butterfish - fried in a couple inches of oil in a deep fry pan; southern cabbage (home canned already - just open & heat); collards (home grown & frozen - just heat). Coffee, but no dessert, of course.
After receiving ashes this morning as Mass, I offered to help carry the Cross from the rear garage (behind the church building and the Rectory building) across the width of our parking lot, to the front lawn. Two men and two women - and still it wasn't lightweight! Nope. Not at all. My spine is killing me this afternoon!
(and it would have been even heavier for the other three persons if I hadn't offered to help out - wow)I never really gave that old wooden Cross any thought before. It's just always been out there each year. But I never gave much though to how it got out there and set in place. Today, I found out exactly how that happens... Some of our Knights of Columbus carry it out there and set it up. But this year, we lost one Knight who just passed away two weeks ago... and one is hospitalized right now... and another was unable to come early this morning - only later this afternoon... so we had two left who were here at the 7:00am Mass. So they, and a wife, decided to do it. I was awaiting my ride home from a K of C from a different church (Mr Witchy has no car and is using mine, leaving me without a car, so I've been stranded at home lately.), so I was the last person left from the first Mass of the day... so I saw them three of them struggling. What was I to do? So I pitched in. Never mind my broken spine. I know that God won't let my spine break further carrying His Cross - and He didn't. Yeah, I hurt... so I give my suffering up as my sacrifice today for the sake of the souls in purgatory, that their stay in purgatory might be shortened a bit. That's the point of 'sacrifice', isn't it? (and nothing says I can't take an extra Tramacet or two & an extra Carisoprodol, with my doctor's permission, while suffering and giving up my pain as my sacrifice) Dear Lord, but that big wooden Cross was heavy!!
So, while I ponder the Lenten season, and what I am going to give up for Lent, and what I am going to add to my prayer routine and to my discipline (besides the annual Archdiocesan Rice Bowl thing) for Lent... I have an entirely new view of the season and the upcoming Passion of Our Lord.
It's a Day of Fast and a Day of Abstinence.
So... only enough food to equal two small meals with no snacks in between. (Fast)
Fish. No meat or meat products. (Abstinence)
Because it's a Lenten meal, it also must be simple and show some privation.
Whole butterfish - fried in a couple inches of oil in a deep fry pan; southern cabbage (home canned already - just open & heat); collards (home grown & frozen - just heat). Coffee, but no dessert, of course.