So, I’ve never been to an Ash Wednesday Service. In fact, I know very little about Lent, the distribution of Ashes, Lenten Mission or any of that stuff. You’d think I would have picked up at least a little bit on this while living in Mexico through two of these traditional, roman catholic ’seasons’. But no – I’m totally ignorant.
I’m going to try to go to Mass tonight at St. Mark’s by my house – but even if I don’t make it I’ve decided to participate in the Lenten Mission this year. I would tell you more about what that means if I knew … but I don’t yet know exactly what that even means! I’m not being pithy or trite, I do know that I don’t want to wait another year to partake in this tradition that people have been practicing for generations throughout the world. So, I guess I’ll just learn along the way.
As I discover what it is that I’m doing (both wrong and right) I plan to blog. I know I haven’t blogged in a long while and I haven’t done so consistently in a really, really long time. Some of that is due to Facebook and some of it is due to me being too busy to have anything really productive to say.
Over the next 6 weeks I will share resources (online and offline), experiences, thoughts, ideas and generally just journal what’s going on as I try to wrap my mind around this great tradition. My prayer is that it will lead me to a deeper appreciation of the season of Easter. I long to capitalize more on both Easter and Christmas as they are so closely related to our Savior – and by capitalize, I mean use the event, atmosphere and even commercialization of the ‘holiday’ to bring my family closer to one another, closer to the real meaning of the events that are celebrated and ultimately closer to God.
Tags: Church, discipline
February 26, 2009 at 2:04 PM
Mike,
I understand a lot of your confusion regarding all of this. My wife was a lifelong Catholic until very recently and during our courtship and early in our marriage, I attended many a mass. I also went to a few years worth of the special masses, including Ash Wednesday, Easter and Christmas. It was all quite eye opening to a CofC guy like myself and ultimately has served to increase my awareness of how she sees things. She has since pulled away from her Catholic roots to join the Christian Church that we attend now. However, if you have any questions, I am sure that she would be glad to answer them for you, at least from her perspective.